Our creative, imaginative relationship with sound has entered a fantastically rich period, facilitated and necessitated by cultural, social and technological evolution. Sound acts as a new parameter in a world evolved from the practices and theory of the visual arts, and as a highly sophisticated art form in music composition and improvisation. It acts as a dimension of the plastic, installation and interactive arts. It provides a perspective on place and time. It is a vital component of environmental art and a conveyor of information, e.g. through sonification. It emerges as algorithmic surface, as the trace of virtuoso improvised performance or of informal social behaviour. And it provides an interface with technology.
Each of these perspectives has its own discourse, practices, techniques, cultural infrastructure and institutions. Sound Arguments is a locus for this rich tapestry, a space that aims to bring together people interested and working with sound with diverse, and complementary, backgrounds. Through sustained cross-fertilisation, they will participate in the evolution of new common discourses and individual critical practices.
At each of five monthly, two to three day encounters, you will meet and discuss with invited artists and experts, addressing issues from the abstract to the technical, from the social to the practical. Guest artists and scholars will act as catalysts for sharing and reflection between participants; you will acquire new techniques in workshops and lectures led by international experts, to stimulate and inform your practice. Alongside invited guests, in recurring activities led by Orpheus’ faculty throughout the program, you will explore different modes of sonic thinking and doing in guided listening sessions, movie screening, and gustatory explorations. All participants will be able to share their own projects in a wide-ranging, critical and supportive environment. As a community, we will expand horizons, vision and practice – and together hopefully evolve new discourses on contemporary sound-based practices.
Topics include:
- Microphones and loudspeakers as musical instruments; composing movements for electronic sounds.
- Craft; critical listening; site.
- Sound art infrastructures; co-learning; networks; knowledge ecology; care.
- Experimentalism in folk music; composition and performance with live electronics; artistic collaboration.
- Obsolete technology and media; acoustic recording; analogue recording.
- Sound archives; close listening; listening to colonial history.
- Fabrication as a narrative tool; craft and materiality.
- Telos / tinkering; thinking with Simondon.
- Guided listening, early electronic music
- Food and sound
Documentation from previous editions can be seen in our Instagram page.
Topics and guests from previous editions can be found here, here and here.
Registration
Call opens in October 2026.
Sound Arguments will meet monthly from February – May 2027. Meetings will be held both in Ghent and Leiden, according to the calendar that will follow.
Sound Arguments is made available at no cost to participants, regardless of institutional affiliation. At Sound Arguments we aim to create a safe and inclusive environment for all those involved; we particularly encourage applications from historically under-represented groups in the field. As organisors, we commit to taking that into account during evaluation of the applications received.
General inquiries can be sent to soundarguments@orpheusinstituut.be
We look forward to meeting you!
Magno Caliman (Orpheus Instituut, Ghent)
Marcel Cobussen (Academy of Creative and Performance Arts, Leiden University)
Jonathan Impett (Orpheus Instituut, Ghent)
