Thursday 2 January 2025, 7.30pm
Recent Israeli attacks on Beirut saw 200+ evacuation orders, more than 70 airstrikes, and above all 1000+ hours of drone surveillance, contributing to an already dense sonic atmosphere.
Lebanese sound artist Mohamed Choucair transformed the incessant buzz of the Israeli UAV into a musical instrument.
A showcase of this instrument will take place on January 2nd, alongside a talk between Mohamed and Steve Goodman in which they will discuss the Israeli sonic arsenal.
Steve Goodman will also present a 20 minute a/v presentation on the night.
Moe Choucair is a multidisciplinary artist specialized in film and audio, well practiced as performer and music industry professional. Moe co-founded the Ballroom Blitz, a multi-room music venue by night and open-house for artists by day, and continues to guide its operation today with an attentive eye on curation, communication, and creative direction. He performs under diverse monikers, most notably his latest project: Bakisa. He animated many clubs and platforms under jackthefish, including two Boiler Room sessions and a Mixmag focus. As with all works, music goes in all directions, and chases many aesthetics and styles. Performances often step away from the realm of music and takes diverse shapes in the world of art, with the example of Air Pressure, a piece dubbed a diary of the Lebanese Skies, a project by Lawrence Abu Hamdan which has toured many museums and cultural festivals including the MoMA Museum of Modern Art in New York, Pompidou in Paris, and was adapted to film which premiered in Fondazione Sandretto in Torino.
A wide scope of work animate his everyday which includes creative direction of the Ballroom Blitz, writer and editor of the Ballroom Express, core team member of Ma3azef and radio AlHara, curator of UK platform Keakie, producer of the artPost21 Podcast with Dr Omar Kholeif, resident artist ofRadio Raheem hosted by the Triennale Museum of Modern Design in Milan, as well as freelance audio visual consultant. A special highlight of his performances features a protest piece dubbed “You are not very famous in Palestine” which premiered in the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2021.
Kode9 aka Steve Goodman is an artist, writer and DJ. He founded the record label Hyperdub in 2004 and Flatlines in 2019. He has produced 3 albums, 2 with the late vocalist The Spaceape (Memories of the Future, Hyperdub-2006, Black Sun, Hyperdub-2012) and one solo (Nothing 2015) His book Sonic Warfare was published in 2009 (MIT Press) and in 2019 he co-edited Audint-Unsound:Undead (Urbanomic Press) In 2021, he founded Flatlines as a book imprint with first publication Ø, documenting 36 events he co-curated between 2017 and 2020 in South London. His sound installations have appeared at, among others, the Tate Modern, the Barbican and Arebyte Gallery in London, and CAC in Shanghai.
