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16.10.2020

Unsound 2020 Curtain Call. Archive Online. Intermission Book and Album Coming.

Curtain Call EN

We’re slightly late to drop the curtain on Unsound 2020, having completed 11 days of online commissioned works, collaborative concerts, workshops, discussions and more. We have to admit that with a smaller team and a drastically cut budget it wasn’t easy – thank you to everyone on the team, and any artists and speakers involved, as well as the audience.


We would also like to sincerely thank anyone who supported our activities via Patreon, Friends of Unsound, or any other way. This includes pre-purchasing the Unsound Intermission book and album, also an integral part of this year’s festival. You can still pre-order both here, as well as Solidarity With The Past collection, made from upcycled Unsound merch from previous years.


A freely available YouTube archive of most of the material and events from Unsound is now online, some for a limited time. These include DeForrest Brown, Jr. and James Hoff’s HOBO UFO (v. The New World), Steve Goodman’s Audio Virologies and Lawrence Lek’s AIDOL 爱道; Kristen Gallerneaux’s Echomaking and Chris Watson’s Unlocked, as well as Weavings, the Unsound opening concert.


Online indefinitely are the three Machine Listening sessions, presented with Liquid Architecture, each containing a superb array of performances, performative lectures, interviews and short videos. These include (Against) the Coming World of Listening Machines, Lessons in How (Not) to be Heard and Listening with the Pandemic. The Machine Listening curriculum website can be found here.


You can also watch two sessions from the virtual vlogger Drumpilled, created by artist Sam Rolfes and writer Nora Khan with Team Rolfes. These 30-minute shows feature Dumpilled in a live studio setting outside a simulated Hotel Forum, the abandoned brutalist communist-era hotel where Unsound Krakow has presented countless iconic events. These sessions include Drumpilled in conversation with Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones as well as Drumpilled in conversation with Pussykrew, alongside a stream of the virtual world Pussykrew created with 700 Bliss, Significant Harmonies in Space.


Over the course of the festival, Dumpilled also had her own Instagram account, and was highly active on Unsound Discord, often posing questions to the participants of panel discussions through chat. Dumpilled even sang at the Unsound 2020 Karaoke afterparty via Zoom! (Footage coming soon, we promise.)


Other gems in the archive include MAZEUM Transmission: Tokyo 2000 – a wild and unique 45-minute transmission of several incredible Japanese artists connected to MAZEUM festival. You can also watch Antonina Nowacka’s spellbinding 2857, and TCF’s Awne, in which the programmist places himself in a virtual world where natural farming meets music and art. Also available for viewing is an archived stream of live gameplay from AFTERLIFE 網路來生: ev20f1, an online MMO game, experimental space and curatorial project presented by NAXS corp and Meuko! Meuko!, featuring a showcase of Taiwanese experimental artists.


Unsound 2020 discussions are also in the archives, including:


Our Relationship with the Non-Human Under COVID-19

Offline-Online – Hybrid Possibilities

The Defiant Ones, presented by Nine Nights

Mental Wellbeing in the Long Pandemic Standby

Radical Sociability

Imagining Future Forms of Music Media

Noncompliance – Belarus, Culture and Activism

On the Precipice – Festivals


Important: the last discussion on this list comes with a statement concerning racism and diversity, which you can find here. If you choose to watch this discussion, please read the statement first.


Remember – tomorrow we’re joining forces with Morphine Records and CTM Festival as well as Beirut music initiatives, to present a marathon livestream on Sat 17th October in a show of support for Lebanon’s music scene. You can read all about it here. If you’d like to chat with the Unsound community while the stream is on, you can join us on the Unsound Discord.


Stay tuned for news on our upcoming activities by following us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter – and Discord.