Liquid Architecture Festival of Sound Arts Australia

The theme for the 2013 festival is The Sonic City and is directed by leading Australian sound artist, curator and academic Dr Philip Samartzis and fellow curator and academic Dr Kristen Sharp.

The Sonic City is based on a series of site-specific artworks responding to the spaces, sounds and sights of Melbourne city. The Sonic City will take place in Melbourne from the 29 August 2013 – 14 September 2013, with an accompanying national touring performance program. The program features new works by established and emerging artists from Australia, Japan and Spain. The works will include sound and visual installations and performances highlighting the unique characteristics of the city. A reciprocal presentation is being planned for 2014 in Japan with participating artists.

The Sonic City will include a range of sonic and visual performance/installation presentations focussed on transport, mobility and unfamiliar urban spaces. In addition to galleries and performance venues, the Melbourne program will be located in public spaces such as trams, laneways, rooftops, historic buildings, parking garages and parks. These site-specific works will comprise installations and performances, scheduled across the festival period, which highlight the unique spatial and acoustic nuances of city spaces. The aim is to generate new and unexpected artistic encounters for audiences. By focussing on everyday and often overlooked spaces, the project promotes a deeper awareness of the transforming nature of cities.

Liquid Architecture is a sense specific festival, as opposed to art form specific. Occurring annually since 2000, Liquid Architecture celebrates the diverse methods of sound making and sound theory. It is our belief that listening is a vital activity, and one that is often overlooked within the dominance of visual media in our environment.

Liquid Architecture presents sound. Sound as the starting point for the active practice of listening. This is not to deny the conceptual or the abstract, the metaphorical or the representational, the expressionistic or the meaningful. But rather this is to restore the emphasis on the primary act of listening. Liquid Architecture is in effect then a listening festival and the artists presented are selected as much for their ability to listen with sensitive ears as for the sound they produce. You are invited to engage your sensitive ears and listen.