Sonic Acts Biennial 2026: Gesture and Screech

In his 1964 publication Gesture and Speech, French anthropologist and archeologist André Leroi-Gourhan proposed that ‘musical rhythm generates behaviour that symbolically marks the frontier between the natural world and humanized space, while technical rhythm materially transforms untamed nature into instruments of humanization’. Pushing Leroi-Gourhan’s observations to its most dislocated present, we dive into the symbolical frontier and its possible multinaturalist fragmentations. Gesture and Screech is an invitation to join the proto-post-pre-industrial salutation hymns to urban decay of Finlay Shakespeare; the destruction and reconstitution of the mákina genre by Roc Jiménez de Cisneros; the unstable mechanical arrangements of Scott Gordon; the instrument extension of Jiyoung Wi in collaboration with Tzu Ni; and the hyperdissolved patterns of Petronn Sphene. As the remixed title of the evening suggests, this concert night is an exploration of the movements driving distorted signals, changing pulsating rhythms into dense continuums, and the screeching voices that emerge from genre-defying gestures. This programme is developed together with Hugo Esquinca. Timetable: 20:30 – Jiyoung Wi & Tzu Ni (30 min) 21:00 – Scott Gordon (45 min) 21:45 – Finlay Shakespeare (45 min) 22:30 – ROC / MAKINA TRAX (45 min) 23:15 – Petronn Sphene (45 min)