Text by CLOT Magazine
Phonetics Festival is a new digital art festival focused on sound art and avant-garde musical practice, taking place this November in Algiers. The festival also includes a residence that will take place two weeks before the festival weekend itself. Sound is a universal language, able to trigger cultural dialogue. With this initiative, Phonetics Festival is aiming to promote this dialogue. The Arab world, at the same time, has a rich history of inventions and artistic creations; it is full of talent, but the artists’ works are struggling to cross their regional borders.
Phonetics seeks, among other things, to disseminate the work of these artists and to make these talents shine at home while bringing an international audience to consider the Arab world and its living forces in a new light. The Maghreb is a unique region, and Algeria, in its centre, carries a strong cultural exception. After independence, the country rebuilt itself and regained its identity, favouring its individuality. What makes the festival unique lies in its unique temporality. First, they will propose to the invited artists to collaborate for two weeks within a common space of creation. In the event of artistic affinities, they will be free to imagine new alliances, be trans-national, trans-genres or trans-mediums.
The objective is simple: each artist participates in a project specially created for the occasion. At the end of these two weeks of residency, the festival will begin. The public will experience it with concerts, sound and plastic installations, performances, and conferences, as well as other original experiences: sound geo-location in urban space, sound hacking, sensory experiments, participatory and interactive experiences etc.
The curation for this edition is by Bastien Gallet, and the artist participating include Rudy Decelière, Rezgui Bachir, Myako, SidMan, NSDOS, Rehab Hazgui, Mika Oki and John Dinger. Phonetics will offer an immersive and culturally rich experience, free of charge and intended for all audiences. It will be part of a collective artistic approach associating emerging or recognised international artists by proposing an innovative format where the artistic fields of digital art will cross.
The objective is to create an emulation around creativity and contemporary artistic practices, to encourage an emerging digital creation in this country and to contribute to the renewal of sociocultural practices by promoting interactions. Overcoming cultural divisions, Phonetics will thus offer artists a creative space where sound will be the privileged language between personalities from all worlds. The festival will only be the expression of their meetings, their desires and the influence on their work of this singular territory which is Algiers.
They are running crowdfunding via this link. Phonetics is a production of Post-Piper, Grand Angle & Les Ateliers Sauvages.
