Liquid Architecture

Investigations: Capture All Algorithmic Poetry Liquid Architecture Presents Poly-rhythmic
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Liquid Architecture (LA) is Australia’s leading organisation for artists working with sound and listening. LA is based on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country, at the Collingwood Yards art precinct. Our program sits at the intersection of contemporary art and experimental music, expressed through a range of presentation, publishing, research and commissioning activities.

BACKGROUND
Born in the complex artistic climate of the late 1990s, LA is a millennial imagination of Australia’s vibrant experimental sound culture. Founded in 1999, over the following 15 years, under the direction of Nat Bates, LA grew from being a boutique local event into Australia’s leading festival of experimental, electronic, improvised and avant-garde music.

In 2014, the organisation pivoted with an injection of ideas and resources, and the appointment of Joel Stern and Danni Zuvela as the organisation’s artistic leadership. The duo dissolved the festival model in favour of something more open, unpredictable and experimental: a year-round, curatorial program of boundary-pushing public events, happenings and situations untethered to any one discipline, ideology or format.

Forever expanding and evolving to meet our horizons, the cultural institution we know today as Liquid Architecture is fuelled by the ideas and energies of our team and augmented by the expertise of our board and advisors.

Under the new dynamic leadership of Kristi Monfries and Lucreccia Quintanilla alongside Creative Producer Rohan Rebeiro, Programs Coordinator Ronen Jafari, the new direction will expand on this legacy to build strong foundations and relationships with sound experimentations from First Nations, Diasporas, Asia and the Pacific.

Grounded locally but working globally, LA is a dedicated platform for artists engaged in experimental sound practice, sustained and energised through conversation and research, and realised in collaboration with people in our community and beyond.

We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung as the Traditional Owners and sovereign custodians of the Country on which we practice. We extend our respects to their Elders past and present, and to all First Peoples.


Team

BOARD

DANNY BUTT (CHAIR) is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Practice at Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where he is also Coordinator of Research for Design and Production. His book Artistic Research in the Future Academy was published by Intellect/University of Chicago Press in 2017, and he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Artistic Research and is co-convenor of the Asia Pacific Artistic Research Network. As a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) he worked for intergovernmental agencies such as United Nations Development Programme and ASEAN on new media and development and was editor of the book Internet Governance: Asia Pacific Perspectives (Elsevier/UNDP 2006). He works with the Auckland-based art collective Local Time. He moved from Gadigal country in Sydney to Port Chalmers / Koputai, Aotearoa New Zealand in 1993, performing improvised sound and releasing recordings through the 1990s with Peter Stapleton and Kim Pieters in the groups Rain and Flies Inside the Sun (with Brian Crook); with Michael Morley in the Tanaka-Nixon Meeting; and as Cobweb Iris.

MONICA LIM (CO-CHAIR) is a Melbourne-based pianist and composer of classical contemporary and experimental music. Born in Malaysia and then migrating to Australia in her teens, Monica initially practiced as a Tax Consultant for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, before pursuing her own interests in business and the arts. She has produced work for theatre, contemporary dance, installations, and film, as well as solo and ensemble instrumental pieces. She is interested in new cross-disciplinary genres and forms as well as combinations of new technology with music. Monica is currently undertaking a PhD at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne in interactive technology, AI and gesture-led composition. Monica is co-founder of Project Eleven, a philanthropic initiative which supports the contemporary arts and serves on the boards of the Melbourne Recital Centre, the Substation as well as the Member’s Council for Musica Viva.

MARK NOLEN (TREASURER) is a Certified Practising Accountant with extensive experience in the creative industries sector. He is currently Management Accountant at ACMI, having previously worked in a similar role at Film Victoria. Along the way, he has helped countless singers, actors, and even clowns get their taxes in order – no laughing matter! When not crunching numbers, you can find Mark sitting back with a fine drop of Scotch whisky, soaking up some even finer tunes.

LEANA PAPAELIA (SECRETARY) is a barrister at the Victorian Bar and a soprano. At the Bar, Leana practices in commercial and public law with a focus on banking and financial services regulation, corporations and securities, insolvency, trade practices and human rights. Leana holds an AMusA and a BMus (Hons) majoring in vocal performance. She received a university scholarship to complete her honours and, in her final year of study, was awarded the Horace Keats Memorial Prize for Excellence in Vocal Performance. Leana currently studies under the direction of Loris Synan OAM. Leana is a board member of the Australian Contemporary Opera Company and has held board positions with Lawyers for Animals, an organisation dedicated to improving the welfare of animals through education and law, and Right Now, an independent not-for-profit mediation organisation focusing on human rights issues in Australia.

NARETHA WILLIAMS (MEMBER) is an accomplished practitioner in the Australian creative industries sector. An established artist and music producer, she is a seasoned industry professional with extensive experience across a dynamic range of appointments. Naretha has worked with leading Australian companies and First Nations initiatives, flagship festivals and events, has toured internationally and won several awards. Credits include: St Kilda Festival, Bless Your Blak Arts Festival, Australasian World Music Expo, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Yirramboi First Nations Arts Festival, Science Gallery London, Chunky Move, Performance Space New York, The Melba Spiegeltent, Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ, Sydney Myer Music Bowl, Sydney Dance Company, and Melbourne’s Flash Forward.

GAIL PRIEST (MEMBER) is a sound artist and writer based on Dharug and Gundungurra land (Katoomba, NSW). Her work spans soundtracks for dance, theatre and video, solo electro-acoustic performance as well sound installations for gallery contexts, both solo and in collaboration. She has performed her live compositions and exhibited sound installations nationally and internationally including in Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, France, Norway and the Netherlands. In 2015-16 she was awarded an Emerging & Experimental Arts Fellowship from the Australia Council. She has undertaken numerous radio commissions and releases music on her own label Metal Bitch Recordings as well as Flaming Pines, Endgame Records and room40. She curates events and exhibitions and writes fictively and factually about sound and media art, working for RealTime magazine for over 15 years. She has been on the board of Performance Space (2011-2014), and a peer assessor for the Australia Council. She has just completed a PhD in creative sound theory at UTS. www.gailpriest.net

ANDY MILLER (MEMBER) currently works as the General Manager of Multicultural Arts Victoria. Initially trained as a painter at the Canberra School of Art, Andy Miller worked in theatre for a number of years before working to establish arts programs in the community sector. Following a few years as an arts and cultural officer at two local governments, Andy began a career in the state public service in various senior roles at Arts Victoria and Creative Victoria and was seconded for a period with Creative Partnerships Australia, as Senior Programs Manager. As well as a Bachelor in Fine Arts, he has a Masters in Public Policy and a Graduate Diploma in Arts Management from the University of Melbourne.

REBECA SACCHERO (MEMBER)
Rebeca Sacchero is a Producer with extensive experience across multiple Metro Melbourne Inner North Local Government Areas. Rebeca understands the local government context whilst also having relationships and experience in small to medium arts orgs. She has been working in the space of community engaged practice and is passionate about creating arts access for under-represented communities. She has a strong track record of successful projects with youth, the LGBTQIA+ community, CALD communities and seniors. She has worked across visual arts, performing arts and digital media, with a range of government and private stakeholders. These include major festivals, local and state Government, ARI’s, schools, community health orgs, and social enterprises. She completed a degree in Art History and Curatorship at Monash University in 2017 and in 2019 was selected for Leadership Victoria’s LGBTQIA+ Leadership program. She also runs her own community building electronic music events in which she has toured international artists, and is a DJ.

DAVID CHESWORTH (MEMBER) is an artist and composer, known for his experimental, and at times minimalist music, who has worked with electronics, contemporary ensembles, film, theatre, and experimental opera. Together with Sonia Leber, David has created installation artworks using sound, video, architecture and public participation. Exhibitions include ‘56th Venice Biennale (2015), ‘19th Biennale of Sydney (2014), and Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013-14). Festivals featuring Chesworth’s music and sound works include Ars Electronica; Festival D’Automne de Paris; Bang on a Can Marathon, New York, Biennale of Sydney; Adelaide and Melbourne Festivals; and MONA FOMA. Early in his career he was co-founder of post-punk band Essendon Airport and for five years was coordinator of the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, Melbourne. David is a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at RMIT University, Melbourne, researching auditory archives.

PATRICK HARTONO (MEMBER) Born in Makassar 1988, Patrick Gunawan Hartono is an Indonesian electroacoustic composer and audiovisual artist. He earned a BMus in Composition (Cum laude) from Rotterdam Conservatory with Minor Study at The Institute of Sonology, MMus in Sonic Arts from the University of London, Goldsmiths, and Live Electronic Course from IRCAM, Paris. In 2017 he won the ICMA audience award for his generative audiovisual piece “Matrix Studies” and the 1st Prize for WOCMAT 2019 International Electroacoustic Music Young Composer Award. Most of his works use the sound of Indonesian traditional music instruments, computer-generated sound/images, field recordings; transformed, rearranged, modulated by mathematical rules, real-time interaction, and controlled random operations. Patrick is currently based in Melbourne, Australia, to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of Melbourne while actively involved in local and international electroacoustic/computer music communities.

STAFF

Lucreccia Quintanilla and Kristi Monfries (Co-Directors)
Rohan Rebeiro (Creative Producer)
Ronen Jafari (Programs Coordinator)

LA ASSOCIATES

Tiarney Miekus (Associate Editor - Disclaimer)
Laura McLean and Suvani Suri (Associate Curators - Capture All)



Contact

We welcome conversation, ideas and feedback at any time.

info@liquidarchitecture.org.au
TW, FB, IG, YT, MX, SC
Journal, Podcast

104/35 Johnston Street
Collingwood VIC 3066
AUSTRALIA

LIQUID ARCHITECTURE
SOUND INC
ABN 73128090237
ASN A0050679K

Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement

Liquid Architecture (LA) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information obtained and stored about its audience or clientele, including users of this website.

We understand and appreciate that our audience or clientele and users of this website are concerned about their privacy and the confidentiality and security of any information that may be provided to us.

This policy applies when Liquid Architecture determines what information will be collected or disclosed, or how any information will be processed.

We take a broad understanding of what constitutes ‘personal information’. We understand ‘personal information’ to include any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

Liquid Architecture is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act and is compliant with the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012.

We may, from time to time, review and update this Privacy Policy to take account of new laws and technology, changes to Liquid Architecture’s operations and practices and to make sure it remains appropriate to the changing legal environment.

THE TYPES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION LA COLLECTS

The type of information Liquid Architecture collects and holds includes (but is not limited to) personal information, including sensitive information, about:

  • Contact information including email address, phone number, names, gender, organisation, role.
  • Connection information including linkages and referrals between people.
  • Financial information including amounts paid to LA, donated to LA, or received by LA.
  • When you visit our website, our server maintains an access log that includes the following information: the visitor’s IP address, the date and time of the visit to the site, the pages accessed and documents downloaded, the previous site visited, and the type of browser used.
  • When you visit our website, cookies are stored on your device that provides information to Google Analytics to give us statistical information about our visitors.

HOW PERSONAL INFORMATION IS COLLECTED
LA collects personal information in a variety of different ways depending on the type of contact that is made with the organisation. We collect personal information both from individuals directly and from third parties.

  • Subscribing to LA’s newsletter via the website, in-person or other means
  • Visiting LA’s website
  • Registering for LA’s programs of events (eg. performances, workshops, lectures)
  • Purchasing a ticket for LA’s programs of events via a ticketing system
  • Making an online enquiry
  • Making an individual donation to LA
  • Becoming a sponsor
  • Submitting a proposal to LA
  • Providing written feedback to LA
  • Through agreements with programming partners to add addresses to our mailing lists
  • Images of persons might be collected during documentation of an LA performance
  • If you become a LA Associate, Volunteer or Board Member
    LA may also collect personal information over the phone, in person or by electronic correspondence in order to undertake its regular administrative operations

WHY PERSONAL INFORMATION IS COLLECTED
LA collects personal information in order to service the needs of its staff, audience and partnerships. This information is only used with your consent. Your personal information may be retained and used for the following purposes:

  • To communicate with staff, artists, associates, volunteers, or Board Members
  • For communicating about upcoming programs and services offered by LA and its partners
  • For documenting LA performances and events
  • To communicate to LA audiences on behalf of other arts or government organisations offering information regarding their products
  • For artistic program research and organisational continuous improvement purposes
    All details are kept secure at all times and any individual may request their information is not used for direct marketing, research or any other purpose.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
LA will not sell, lend, disclose, or give personal information of its audience or clientele to external individuals or organisations without first obtaining the customer’s consent.
LA may, however, disclose your personal information or financial data (information exchanged in transactions relating to donations, ticket purchasing or any other product sold):

  • To our insurer or legal advisors for the purpose of obtaining insurance coverage, obtaining professional advice, and managing risks.
  • To our payment services providers or financial institutions. LA will share transaction data only to the extent necessary for processing, refunding, or dealing with queries about payments.
  • In a situation where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that LA is subject to, or in order to protect the vital interests of a person.
    LA will not disclosure personal information to recipients in another jurisdiction unless that jurisdiction has a privacy regime at least as equally protective as Australia. LA will always ask for specific consent before disclosing personal information to a recipient in another jurisdiction.

PERSONAL INFORMATION ACCURACY
LA is committed to ensuring all personal information it collects is accurate, complete and up-to-date. However, the accuracy of this personal information to a large extent depends on the information provided by its clients. LA asks that all clients:

  • Advise us if you become aware of any errors in your personal information.
  • Advise of any changes in their personal details, such as address, email address and phone number.

YOUR RIGHTS
At any time, any person has the right:

  • To know what personal information LA holds about them and how it has been used
  • To correct or alter any personal information LA holds about them
  • To have the personal information about them erased
  • To withdraw consent for the collection, retention, disclosure, use or processing of personal information
  • To make a request or inquiry, write to info@liquidarchitecture.org.au

WEBSITE
The LA website contains links to other sites. LA is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. LA encourages users when they leave the site to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personal information. This privacy statement applies solely to the activities of LA.

GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION (GDPR)
LA operates occasional European artistic programming and partnerships, and complies with the data protection policies required by the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) since 25 May 2018.

OUR DATA SECURITY POLICY
LA takes steps to prevent the personal information it holds from misuse, loss, interference or unauthorised access.
LA will also destroy or de-identify personal information when it is no longer needed, or when requested.

ENQUIRIES
If you would like further information about the way Liquid Architecture manages the personal information it holds, please contact LA via info@liquidarchitecture.org.au.

Feedback & Complaints

Feedback & Complaints

Liquid Architecture (LA) is committed to respecting feedback and complaints and continually improving our processes. This policy is intended to ensure that we handle complaints fairly, efficiently and effectively. We encourage feedback as part of improving our audience experience and artistic programming.

You can provide feedback or make a complaint via email via email to info@liquidarchitecture.org.au.

HOW DOES LA HANDLE FEEDBACK AND COMPLAINTS?
Upon receiving feedback or a complaint, LA will acknowledge receipt of the feedback or complaint; and request further information if necessary and advise how the issue is likely to be resolved.
LA will not respond to feedback or complaints that violate State or Federal laws, or suggest that others do so; contain profane, violent, abusive, sexually explicit language or hate speech; or are bullying, harassing or disruptive in nature.
Where possible, complaints will be resolved at first contact with us. When appropriate we may offer an explanation or apology to the person making the complaint. Where this is not possible, we may decide to escalate the complaint to LA’s CEOs or Board. Where a person making a complaint is dissatisfied with the outcome of our review of their complaint, they may seek an external review of our decision.
We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that people making complaints are not adversely affected because a complaint has been made by them or on their behalf.
All complaints are confidential. We accept anonymous complaints if there is a compelling reason to do so and will carry out a confidential investigation of the issues raised where there is enough information provided.

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FOR MY COMPLAINT TO BE RESOLVED?
The time it takes to resolve a matter depends on the issues raised and any enquiries that need to be made. As a guide, LA aims to acknowledge written feedback and complaints within 1 business day of receipt (if an email address or phone number is provided); respond to all written feedback and complaints within 5 business days of receipt.

LA will consider the matter closed if you indicate that you are satisfied with the response, or LA does not hear from you within 10 business days after sending you its response.

WHAT IF I’M NOT HAPPY WITH THE RESPONSE?
If you are dissatisfied with LA’s response you are encouraged to contact LA to request an internal review. You should outline in writing why you are dissatisfied with the response; and the outcome you are seeking. LA will provide a further response within 10 business days of receiving this information.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of our review of their complaint, you may seek an external review of our decision (by the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission for example).
Australian Charities and
Not-for-Profits Commission
Advice team: 13 22 62
Online Form

TICKET REFUNDS AND EXCHANGES
LA may provide an exchange or refund of a ticket if problems arise before, during or after an event. LA encourages our audience to try to resolve problems as soon as possible after they arise so that we have the best opportunity to find a solution.

Events

Eavesdropping

Tue, 24. Jul–Sun, 28. Oct 2018
The Ian Potter Museum of Art
Artists

Lawrence Abu Hamdan

“I despise anyone who says that art is about asking questions, and not providing answers. You hear that pretty much every day in our profession. Artists who repeat this statement think of this as a radical act. But what if art’s radicality is actually about art being an engine for truth production? I’m not talking about the same forms of truth production in science or law, since science is totally different to law and each represents two different models for telling the truth. In forensics, science and law meet in some weird space. In art, you can borrow from the ways that science and law tell the truth in order to come up with the means by which art can also speak it.”
‘Lawrence Abu Hamdan in Conversation’, Ocula 2018


Three works by Abu Hamdan feature in Eavesdropping.

1. Rubber Coated Steel

The video ‘Rubber Coated Steel’ follows an incident in May 2014, in which Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank (Palestine) shot and killed two teenagers, Nadeem Nawara and Mohamad Abu Daher. When Abu Hamdan worked with the human rights organisation Defence for Children International to investigate the incident, the resulting report – and especially Abu Hamdan’s audio-ballistic evidence – led to one soldier being indicted for manslaughter. ‘Rubber Coated Steel’ restages the report’s findings as a video tribunal, appropriating and extending the techniques of proof, reasoning and rhetoric more familiar to the courtroom, with the viewer in the position of juror. For all the work’s real power and persuasive force, recent events give it a more melancholy edge, a reminder of the politics of legality and the non-equation between law and justice. In 2017, Israeli prosecutors brokered a plea deal with Nadeem’s killer to the lesser charge of negligent killing. When this deal was subsequently upheld by the Israeli High Court of Justice on appeal, one news organisation was led to report, ‘even forensics can’t stop Palestinian teen’s killer walking free.’



2. Saydnaya (the missing 19db)

‘Saydnaya (the missing 19db)’ results from Abu Hamdan’s collaboration with Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture to produce an acoustic investigation into Saydnaya Military Prison, 30km North of Damascus, where an estimated 15,000 people have now been executed since 2011. The prison is inaccessible to independent observers and monitors, so the memory of those few who were released is the only resource available from which to learn of and document the violations taking place there. ‘Saydnaya (the missing 19db)’ focuses on the role of sound and silence both as evidence of the violence being enacted at Saydnaya and, as Abu Hamdan puts it, ‘a form of torture in and of itself’. More specifically, the work documents how the volume of inmates’ whispers became four times quieter after anti-government protests began in 2011. For Abu Hamdan, this 19-decibel drop in the capacity to speak stands as testament to the transformation of Saydnaya from a prison to a death camp. In these 19 decibels we can hear the disappearance of voice and the voice of the disappeared.



3. Conflicted Phonemes

In September 2012, Lawrence Abu Hamdan held a meeting in Utrecht to discuss ways of countering the controversial use of language analysis in determining the origin of asylum seekers and unjustly denying legitimate claims of asylum. In addition to the various linguists, researchers, activists and cultural organisations gathered, the group included twelve Somali people who had all been subjected to a language, dialect, or accent analysis by the Dutch immigration authorities and consequently had their asylum requests rejected. Together, the group created a series of non-geographic maps that explore the hybrid nature of accent, complicating its relation to one’s place of birth by also considering the social conditions and cultural exchange of those living such itinerant lives. It reads the way people speak about the volatile history and geography of Somalia over the last forty years as a product of continual migration and crisis. Its complexity is a testimony to the irreducibility of the voice to a passport and the poverty of law’s sonic imagination.

In light of this, ‘Conflicted Phonemes’ offers the rejected/silenced asylum seeker an alternative and nonvocal mode of contestation. As well as being exhibited in various galleries and refugee organisations around Europe, the diagrams were presented to a chief judge working within the Dutch immigration authority and submitted at a deportation hearing before the UK Asylum Tribunal. Similar language and accent tests continue to be used in Australia.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a British-Lebanese artist, researcher and audio-investigator associated with the London-based research agency Forensic Architecture. Since 2010, his work has consistently explored the techniques and politics of what he calls ‘forensic listening’: diverse listening practices associated primarily with legal forums and the technoscience of acoustic evidence.

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