what you listen to: a sonic art performance and discussion
What is the agency of the human within the machine?
• 5. July 2025
• Saturday, 14-15H CET
• In Berlin at School of Machines!
FREE!
event
description
Join us this Saturday afternoon for a short performance and discussion with visiting artist, Fari Bradley.
Sensors within architecture, our clothes, our cars and furnishings, make the role of the body in Smart Cities of the near future increasingly one of ‘the object.’ We are surrounded by surveillance infrastructure that is designed for data-harvesting, yet it’s sold to us as being for our safety or our convenience. The reportedly ‘impartial’ sensing object is the ever-increasing eyes and ears of ‘the city as interface’, collapsing distance, robbing us of offlineness, of privacy, creating a new kind of ‘noise’, the disturbance of knowing that we are being watched.
In “A City is Not A Computer” Shannon Mattern posits: “purportedly impartial automated systems [...] aim to merge the ideologies of technocratic managerialism and public service, to reprogram citizens as “consumers” or “users.” While the arts teach us that both social and natural phenomena are complex, a series of processes and ‘indeterminate, relational and constantly open to effects from contiguous processes.’
(Blackman and Venn, 2010 in Surveillance, Data and Embodiment: On the Work of Being Watched, Smith, G., Australian National University, 2016)
Bradley’s performance “What You Listen To” is a work of sonic art, infused with elements of sonic storytelling. It is the fruit of her doctoral research into embodied listening and Smart Cities, at the Centre of Research Into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP) at the University of the Arts London. The research questions the new kind of noise pollution being brought about by Smart Cities. In response to that, Bradley has developed a theory as to how and why an evolved sense of how the body hears is required across society.
The performance is both an internal and external question, about what ‘noise’ we pay attention to, be it the chatter of our inner monologues, or the external noise of the world outside.
“What You Listen To” is a meditation on the power of the individual within a sea of the inhuman urbanity, of ‘online-ness’. As well as the performance, we will hold the space for a discussion, and Bradley will present on the case of tech in her country of birth as ‘the last human rights frontier’.
who is this
for?
This event is for artists, designers, musicians, technologists and anyone interested in performance and for those curious about Internet of Things connected devices and the implication of these technologies on the future. It’s for thinkers and activists around tech versus human futures, and avid listeners.
about our space
School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe has been housed in ACUD Kunsthaus since 2015. It’s a historic 19th century building that’s one of the few remaining independent art houses predating the fall of the Berlin Wall. Currently, it is home to ACUD theatre, cinema, gallery, club and many other organizations including CTM Festival, Lady Liberty Press, Lettrétage, and Reboot.FM.
meet our host
Fari Bradley
Artist
Born in Iran and raised in the UK, Fari Bradley is an auto-didactic artist with a background in music and media. Working with sound, sculpture, performance and broadcast Bradley subverts media to re-engage with materiality, confound straightforward representation and reposition the artwork as taking place in the mind of the listener.
Bradley’s research-led practice ranges from stitched and painted text as signage, totems, spoken word, to composition and performance with electronics. Often performing with experimental analog instruments and found materials, such as domestic and repurposed objects, Bradley uses radio as a means of both conducting “research as practice” and performance.
Bradley's methodologies question ideas of communication and interaction, particularly listening and the politics of sound. Bradley’s radiophonics and sound sculptures call on the aural, even in silent works about sound. Bradley explores unheard sound and the body in constructed environments and expanding technologies. Her works feature in private and public collections in Sharjah and Dubai - UAE, Kuwait and UK, with exhibitions in galleries, museums in the Levant, USA, Europe and the Middle East. Performances include South London Gallery, Venice Biennial, Beaconsfield Gallery and V&A Museum. Bradley has released on The Vinyl Factory UK and on Sub Rosa.