Huddersfield July 8th – 9th 2017

A significant amount of data (on festivals, labels and clubs, union membership, academic conference attendance, and course application) concretely demonstrates that our music and sound industries are predominantly male and ethnically homogeneous (white). Research has shown how assumptions are made about who is associated with digital music and sound production practices, raising fundamental questions about how our environments and communities influence and shape them and our industries.

This weekend invites critical discourse on the activation of sound spaces in relation to gender, race, culture and identity. We seek to listen carefully to voices other than our own; to understand other experiences, activate safer spaces, create inclusive environments and collaborate on informed action. In particular we need to amplify the voices of people creating and producing independently without institutional support, to understand their perspectives and their views about how circumstance shapes practice.

This event is hosting performances, sound installations, short position papers and critical scholarly works that explore how industrial, non-industrial and individual music/sonic practices appropriate and shapes sound and technology.