About us
Sounds Queer? is a Vienna-based collective working on the intersection of electronic music, sound art and queer activism. We share knowledge and tools because we believe that music can create a safer space to exchange experiences and express yourself. A synthesizer can be a feminist spaceship to challenge not only rules in music but also social norms. We organise workshops, collective jams, performances and shows.
@Manuel Hauer
our mission
Sounds Queer? is about creating a safer space through music.
Our priorities are:
Researching on the idea of queer sound
Providing women, femmes, queers, non-binary, trans, gender-nonconforming and gender-non-normative nerds with skills and knowledge on electronic music and digital media art to strengthen their agency.
Working towards the visibility of these artists on the electronic music scene and towards equality and diversity in the digital media arts in general.
OUR HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY
Sounds Queer? was founded in 2014 by Zosia Hołubowska as a flying queer synthesizer laboratory. Since then, it offered workshops on electronic music and queer sound in Poland, Austria, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark and Australia. Currently based in Vienna, SQ? transformed into a collective, when Adele Knall and Violeta Gil joined the team. Adele Knall is a visual artist, radio producer, musician, and cultural and social anthropologist. Violeta Gil Martínez is a culture manager, tech nerd, and musician.
The idea of the project is to create a safer queer space through music. Such a space is understood as a situation where different experiences can be celebrated and privileges challenged. That means the inclusion of different non-normative gender expressions and sexualities, as well as racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds and various types of bodies and their abilities. "Queer" refers to the critical, non-normative approach to understanding gender identities and experiences and sexual desires but it also relates to a type of radical, intersectional feminist activism, that reclaims once the pejorative term "queer" and offers different thinking on society, community, and knowledge-production in general.
In SQ? we're trying to experiment with the idea of the "queer sound", constantly asking ourselves what that would mean. How would queer sound? What is queer sound? The basic inspiration for the project is an idea of a marginalised body producing a marginalised sound by Airek Beachamp and Abi Bliss claim that a synthesizer is an ultimate feminist instrument, thus making electronic and computer music a perfect space for questioning the rules of gender performance and music composition. We want to promote electronic music both as an interesting area of sound art investigation and a new way of self-expression. As artist we are researching the topic of queer sound in our works, but we don’t want to provide the participants with any hints. Rather, we are interested in collective discussions and discussing through music-making.
OUR POLICY
The project prioritises women, girls, queers, trans, intersex and non-binary people but there's no identity policy. Everyone is welcome but before coming think about how easy is it for you to get access to this kind of skills and tools? How easy is it for you to feel comfortable and safe at a workshop with strangers? Please bear in mind that you might be ask to give space to others at a workshop first.
Team
Zosia Holubowska
Zosia Hołubowska is a queer sound artist, musician and a music activist. They explore archives of traditional Eastern European music, as well as traditions of magic, herbalism and demonology, looking for queerable moments. They have been experimenting with traditional ways of singing and synthesizers to create queer soundscapes, installations, performances and audio essays. Currently they are a PhD Fellow at the Academy of Fine Arts. Their research deals with experimental queer methodologies in sound art and singing as knowledge creation process. Hołubowska has performed in Mumok (Austria), Gugenheim Museum (Spain), La Gaite Lyrique (Paris, France), AMOQA (Athens, Greece), Sluice Gallery (London, UK); their last sound installation was shown at the Research Pavilion in Venice (Italy). Their solo music project Mala Herba has toured all over Europe and performed at festivals like: Tauron Nowa Muzyka (PL), Pop Fest (AT), Fekete Zaj (HU), Bent Fest (UK).
Violeta Gil Martínez
(1988, Spain) is a cultural manager, musician and tech woman. For six years she has been working with creative technologies and their transfer, by teaching and organising workshops on e-textiles, music and DIY electronics. As an autodidact music producer, curiosity is the driving force for her, along with the promotion of knowledge and hands-on approaches being the best ways to learn. She has worked as a producer for Ars Electronica Festival and Wiener Festwochen. She has a solo music project called Matte/Glossy and has performed on stages of Austria, Spain, Italy and Czech Republic.
Tony Renaissance
Tony Wagner is a musician and artist whose work centers on radical soft explorations of sound, vocals and images with a big crush on experimental pop. As founder of the music label Tender Matter, co-founder of the event series The Future and member of the Sounds Queer? collective they are promoting and highlighting the work of queer and gender nonconforming artists in electronic music.
Image by Inés Ballesteros
Adele Knall
- A | M | K (1990, Austria) is a visual artist, radio producer, musician and cultural and social anthropologist, lives and works in Vienna. Studied Jazz at the Vienna Conservatory and Art and Digital Media at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She focuses on sound, installation, animation, video, 35mm film, language, performance, hacking, sculpture, DIY. In 2017 „50Hz“, a radio project she co-founded, won the Austrian Radio Prize for Adult Education.