︎
 
   

2023


Friday 29 September
Evening concert
Bishopsgate Institute


Doors 6.30pm

Music 7pm
Ends 10pm


Halim El-Dabh حليم الضبع, Wire Recorder Piece (1944) & Meditation in White Sound (1959)

Spatial diffusion by Sam Salem أسامة سالم

Zeynep Toraman, An emotional rollercoaster just for you (2018)

For electric guitar, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello & electronics, performed by Distractfold Ensemble (Rocío Bolaños, Daniel Brew, Linda Jankowska, Alice Purton, Kasia Ziminska). UK premiere

Sam Salem أسامة سالم, The Way Up & The Way Down (2023)

For percussion, electronics & video, performed by Noam Bierstone. UK premiere

FRKTL سارة بدر

Live audiovisual set

Mariam Rezaei, SING (2023) 

For two turntables

Saturday 30 September
Afternoon film matinee
Cafe Oto


Doors 1pm
Begins 1.30pm
Ends 3.30pm  


Short film screenings, 1.30-2.30pm

Saeed Taji Farouky سعيد تاجي الفاروقي has selected four short films which complement Another Sky’s focus on sonic experimentation. These avant-garde SWANA films have a sense of musicality and rhythm: old home movies; overheard slices of songs on the radio; the imagined auditory horror of suburban automobile hell; musical archives as political resistance; military archives subverted into absurdist kitsch. All examine new forms of fragmented landscapes and layered narratives, challenging both traditional narrative structure and the dominance of the image in conventional filmmaking.

Lina Laraki, Halves Through Night (2021)

Part horror, part audio installation, Halves Through Night is a transcendent exploration of barzakh, the Persian term for a transitional space between the living and the dead, through a sonic journey with a sentient car in a Roubaix suburb. Halves Through Night explores this veiled space in which beings are suspended, disembodied from the real, and no longer belong to any place.

Anoushka Berberian and Olivia Melkonian, Unseen Singers (2021)

A musical and auditory journey in memory of the victims and survivors of the Armenian genocide. Part travelogue, part investigation of fading memories, the film both records a process of remembering, and sculpts a memorial itself.

Karim Kassem, Mr. Wool (2018)

Beiruti home videos capture a family entertained by the absurd, repetitive obsessions of Mr. Wool, a man who is never satisfied with his car parking. From the director of Octopus, winner of the Envision Best Film award at IDFA 2021.

Kamal Aljafari, Paradiso, XXXI, 108 (2022)

The latest act of archival sabotage from one of the region’s most defiant experimental filmmakers. Using found footage from Israeli military propaganda films, Aljafari uses the strategy of the “cut-up” to undermine the myth and transform it into an absurd Sisyphean folly.

Workshop, 2.30-3.30pm
Building a Sonic Archive: exploring audio as a tool of resistance

Hosted by Olivia Melkonian, this participatory workshop challenges traditional archiving concepts and presents the practice as an accessible art form and community tool. Drawing from oral history techniques, participants will develop methods of producing creative audio rooted in documentary practices and resistance.

If you would like to participate, please come with an audio clip you would like to work with – a recording of ambient sound, singing, voices, anything that to you represents an important memory, and therefore archival material. A digital file on your phone is perfect.




Saturday 30 September
Evening concert
Cafe Oto


Doors 7.30pm
Music 8pm
Ends 12am
 

Hardi Kurda هەردی کوردە, Your Resonance (2023)

Another Sky commission, for prepared viola & electronics. World premiere

Salam Shamki & Zeynep Ağcabay, You Smell Like A Prayer (2023)

Co-commission with Safar Film Festival, short film with live music

AZADI.mp3.آزادی

Live set

AMMAR 808 عمار

Live set

ZULI

Live set

Zeynep Ağcabay

DJ set

Sunday 1 October
Afternoon label & publishing fair
Cafe Oto


12-3pm


Independent label & publisher fair in association with The Mosaic Rooms Bookshop. With labels and publishers including Azl Collective, Bees & Refugees, CentreCentre, Chutney Magazine, Discontent, Other Asias (Hamja Ahsan), Drowned By Locals, Khidr Collective, LibLib, Maqam مقام, Morphine Records, Nöl Collective, vinyl.4.charity and more to come


Sunday 1 October
Evening concert
Cafe Oto


Doors 7.30pm
Music 8pm
Ends 10.45pm

Nilufar Habibian, Becoming (2023)

Co-commission with Ensemble Contrechamps, for amplified qanun, electric guitar & bass clarinet, performed by Habibian with Distractfold Ensemble (Rocío Bolaños, Daniel Brew). World premiere

Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi کیمیا کوچک زاده یزدی, Unstuck In Time (2023)

Commissioned by Zubin Kanga with the support of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London, for electric guitar, bass clarinet, violin, cello, electronics & video, performed by Distractfold Ensemble (Rocío Bolaños, Daniel Brew, Linda Jankowska, Alice Purton). World premiere
 

Jad Atoui جاد عطوي, Vibrant Pools (2023)

Co-commission with Irtijal Festival, for objects & electronics, performed by Atoui with Distractfold Ensemble (Daniel Brew, Alice Purton). World premiere

Sophie Hoyle, Sheer-Naked-Aggression (2017)

Video with 2-channel sound

Nour Mobarak نور مبارك, Subliminal Lambada (2023)

Co-commission with Counterflows Festival, for voice & electronics. Second performance

Mazen Kerbaj & Ute Wassermann, Revisitations (2021)

Commissioned by SAVVY Contemporary in collaboration with MaerzMusik 2021 as part of a programme on Halim El-Dabh, for voice, trumpet, electronics & objects. UK premiere

Links to past events:

29 September concert at Bishopsgate Institute
30 September film screenings & workshop at Cafe Oto

30 September concert at Cafe Oto

1 October concert at Cafe Oto

Access:

We offer 2 for 1 tickets for guests’ carers and are more than happy to reserve you a seat or a space for a wheelchair. Please email us here to arrange this.

Both Bishopsgate Institute and Cafe Oto events take place on the ground floor, with step-free access and wheelchair-accessible, gender-neutral toilets. If you have any questions or requests to help make your visit comfortable and smooth, please email us here. 


Bishopsgate Institute has a fixed induction loop which works with amplified sound. To access the loop, please adjust your hearing aid to the T setting.
Photo: Ines Vansteenkiste-Muylle
AMMAR 808, aka Sofyann Ben Youssef, is the mastermind behind the critically acclaimed albums Super Stambeli, Global Control / Invisible Invasion and Maghreb United, as well as the project Bargou 08. Before moving to Europe, he was the godfather of the Tunisian alternative and electronic scene. Trained as a musicologist in the corridors of Tunis’ Music Institute, he specialises in Arabic and Indian music. He now operates his own mothership studio in Kjellerup, Denmark, where he works as a composer, producer, sound engineer and music production teacher.
Anoushka Berberian has been following her passions for graphic/media design, film production and content creation across many different experiences. Her latest project has been co-producing a house music documentary featuring Sam Divine, to be released in late 2023. Anoushka is also a successful content creator with over 35,000 subscribers and 14.5 million views on YouTube gained in the past three years.