BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.5//EN TZID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:12182@artinliverpool.com DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE:20261008 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE:20261012 DTSTAMP:20260824T141007Z URL:https://www.artinliverpool.com/events/random-slop-and-thoughtful-noise / SUMMARY:Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre: Random Slop and Thoug htful Noise DESCRIPTION:The Noise Research Union (NRU) are back to SSTRAPP and they’r e bigger and better. The whole union will be there at BOARC\, including: M artina Raponi\, Sonia de Jager\, Mattin\, Cecile Malaspina\, Miguel Prado\ , Inigo Wilkins\, and our new core member Patricia Reed. Co-facilitating t ogether with them will of course as always be the wonderful synth nerd Mae ve Devine aka @Quieting___ ethereal techno witch and DIY hardcore punk vet eran.\nThis workshop will focus on the relation between attention and nois e\, covering a great many ways this can be conceived\, from the entropic d istraction machines of social media and AI slop to the forms of exclusiona ry sociality that organise what we consider as irrelevance or interference . Amidst this 24/7-nonstop-ultraconnected-endless-hyperexposure we want to investigate the critical use of noise as a force for the possible ethical -aesthetic resistance\, disruption and transformation of the social infras tructures and norms that support and maintain this capture and exploitatio n of attention.\nTo foster consciousness of noise\, not just sonically but socially and politically\, is to defy the pull of distractive attractors and fly free from the restrictive regulation of focus. Neurodiverse revolu tionaries and allies against perceptual normativity\, let us together fome nt a revolt against metastasizing brainrot and the maintenance of power th rough the attentional organisation of significance!We propose to begin wit h a four-day ‘strike’ against the distraction economy: this means we r eject oppressive working conditions of constant digital delirium and we re sist demands for the drudgery of focused concentration alike. Together we will empty the slop bucket\, pack away the doom scrolls\, and get on with the serious business of careful and deliberate noise.\nDuring the workshop each member of the union will give a short presentation on the question o f attention and noise and how this issue crosses concerns in their work. L ike SSTRAPP\, the NRU is deeply committed to collective thinking through t he use of diagrams\, and we’ll aim to produce new diagrams together with the workshop participants\, which will be published in the NRU’s ongoin g series of zines. In the practice-based part of the workshop we’ll work on synthesizers\, samplers\, loopers and drum machines\, dj controllers\, effects pedals\, acoustic instruments and found objects to make jagged wa ves\, weird soundscapes\, off-kilter beats and sublime noise. We’ll coll ect and distort field recordings\, do attentive and distractive listening sessions\, and work in small groups towards performances on Saturday night .\nAll of the NRU have worked on issues surrounding noise and attention in various ways: Martina Raponi’s last book Psofotopias (Noise: Sounding O ut the Unheard) explores sound beyond aurality and audibility\, and those zones of uncertainty and ambiguity\, or spaces of noise and confusion posi tioned between the utopian and the dystopian. Sonia de Jager has worked on semantic noise with regard to computing and machine learning\, mystical e xperiences and social scripts in the context of contemporary cognitive sci ence\, and has recently co-written a paper together with Inigo and Jimena Clavel Vasquez on the concept of active ignorance\, which describes the ro le of attention in socially structured forms of bias\, repression and deni al\, bringing arguments from epistemic injustice and critical race theory together with current neuroscientific theories.\nMattin is an artist\, mus ician and theorist working primarily with noise and improvisation\, his pe rformances often aim to provoke social unease and conceptual friction\, hi s recently published book Social Dissonance presents an analysis of how th e modern subject is engulfed in a noise from above (suprapersonal processe s such as capitalist ideology) and below (subpersonal neurocompuational pr ocesses)\, and he is the co-editor of the books Noise and Capitalism\, and Abolishing Capitalist Totality. Cecile Malaspina’s book\, An Epistemolo gy of Noise\, examines the ambiguity of the concept of noise\, from inform ation entropy to normative uncertainty and the mental state of noise.\nMat tin is an artist\, musician and theorist working primarily with noise and improvisation\, his performances often aim to provoke social unease and co nceptual friction\, his recently published book Social Dissonance presents an analysis of how the modern subject is engulfed in a noise from above ( suprapersonal processes such as capitalist ideology) and below (subpersona l neurocompuational processes)\, and he is the co-editor of the books Nois e and Capitalism\, and Abolishing Capitalist Totality. Cecile Malaspina’ s book\, An Epistemology of Noise\, examines the ambiguity of the concept of noise\, from information entropy to normative uncertainty and the menta l state of noise.\nPatricia Reed’s work addresses social transformations of coexistence at planetary dimensions\, focusing on the interactions bet ween world-models and practices of inhabitation\, she has written on plane tary spacialization and the intelligibility of incompleteness. Under the c ollective name Laboria Cuboniks she co-wrote the Xenofeminist manifesto (X F)\, which is a rationalist\, anti-naturalist\, and technomaterialist fram ework aiming to repurpose technologies to dismantle gender\, race\, and cl ass\, it treats the ‘natural’ as a patriarchal construct\, and alienat ion as a positive impetus for social transformation. Drawing on cybernetic concepts\, XF views noise or breakdown in technological systems as a stra tegic opening to intervene in techno-capitalism.\nPractical Details\nSSTRA PP is held at a fantastic venue called Bidston Observatory Artistic Resea rch Centre (BOARC).\nBOARC is an anti-racist\, trans-inclusive\, intersect ional feminist space where we welcome everyone who abides by this account ability agreement.\nThere are no requirements for attending SSTRAPP\, ever yone is welcome\, whatever their knowledge\, abilities\, etc.\, and the th eory and practice should be accessible for those with no background in the m.\nWe recommend arriving at BOARC on Thursday morning so we’re ready to start working at 11am\, but if you can’t make it then you can still joi n later\, we’ll finish on Sunday afternoon. If you’d like to arrive th e day before or stay some extra days that should be possible\, just let us know so we can book you in for extra nights with BOARC (£33 per night).\ nThe cost for participating in the workshop includes three nights accommod ation and breakfast\, lunch and dinner on all four days.\nWorkshop fee: £ 444\nThere are a limited number of lower priced places available\, so if y ou’d like to come but can’t afford this price because of genuine econo mic hardship then please get in touch and we’ll see what we can do to ma ke it possible for you.\nSince its inception SSTRAPP has always been about making sonic and somatic theory and practice available outside of increas ingly expensive and restrictive academic institutions\, and we’re strong ly committed to including people at the intersections of forms of oppressi on crossing class\, race\, gender\, ability\, etc.\nIf you’d like to joi n\, please get in touch by sending an email including some details about y our background and interest to sstrapp@proton.me ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.artinliverpool.com/wp-content/upload s/2026/08/unnamed-26.jpg CATEGORIES:Workshops LOCATION:Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre\, Wilding Way\, Prent on\, Wirral\, CH43 7RA\, Merseyside\, United Kingdom GEO:53.400897;-3.073394 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Wilding Way\, Prenton\, Wir ral\, CH43 7RA\, Merseyside\, United Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Bi dston Observatory Artistic Research Centre:geo:53.400897,-3.073394 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260329T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR