The Acousmatic Lectures have their roots in discursive practices and offer a new listening experience based on the Pythagorean acousmatic model: a mode of presentation in which the speaker is hidden from the audience. Acousmatic Lectures encourage both orator and listener to focus exclusively on the acoustic space which provides a frame for the spoken word, its temperament and tone, without the addition of visual information or the speaker’s body language. For this series of lectures, all visual clues generated by the speaker’s facial and bodily expressions (which normally influence how information is received) remain hidden. Nevertheless, the speaker’s voice and its dissemination in the surrounding environment still convey the speaker’s physical presence. This approach underscores the dialectical conflict between abstract and sensorial information confronting us with an array of decisions specific to the act of listening itself.

The lectures are academic in nature—a deliberate choice of the artist.

Nihad Sirees

The States of Passion

For Nihad Sirees, music, love and passion can occasionally turn into dystopian reality. In his Acousmatic Lecture, he will tell us about how listening to a story can alter your reality.

The lecture will be in English and Arabic

 

Mario Asef (AR) studied architecture and art in Argentina, Germany and England. His work has been exhibited worldwide, most recently at Unater (Puebla, Mexico), Quartier 21 (Vienna), Kasa Galerie (Istanbul), Rich Mix (London), The Drawing Hub (Berlin), Hamburger Kunsthalle, Künstlerhaus Bregenz (Austria), and the Akademie der Künste Berlin.

Nihad Sirees (نهادسيريس)(SY), author, was born in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo (Halab). He has written seven novels and a number of plays, several TV drama series and children’s dramas. His novel The North Windsdeals with the First World War and the blossoming of Syrian national consciousness. It is one of Syria’s most important historical novels.