There is a festival in Porto that promises "affection of listening" in the coming days

Curated by the artistic experimentation centre based in Madrid, The Institute for Postnatural Studies, "O Afeto da Escuta" - a festival for sound ecologies and sonic plots - has free admission and takes place in three spaces of the city: Passos Manuel, Galeria da Biodiversidade and Planetário do Porto. For three days, Porto will host artists from different geographies, in a festival of art and science, which will unfold between concerts, performances and listening sessions.

It kicks off this Friday, at 9:30 p.m., in the auditorium of Passos Manuel, with an opening session in charge of The Institute for Postnatural Studies, which will be followed, at 10:30 p.m., by the performance of KMRU, a sound artist born in Nairobi and based in Berlin, currently one of the most prolific and innovative names in experimental/ambient music.

On Saturday, the day begins at the Galeria da Biodiversidade, at 11 a.m., with a trip to the practice of the charismatic American multi-instrumentalist Laraaji, divided into two moments: meditation, through laughter, and deep listening, using tones of gongs, sitar, voices, and electronics.

In the afternoon, also at the Galeria da Biodiversidade, two sessions are planned: the first (between 3 and 5:30 p.m.) will begin with a video presentation by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, a multidisciplinary artist, whose body of work focuses on exploring the human impulse to "improve" the world, addressing topics such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, conservation, and evolution. It is followed by the participation of Antoine Bertin, who will guide the audience through an auditory journey, punctuated by short sound stories, invitations to listen and other audio inspirations taken from his work and practice.

Party at Passos Manuel

The session will also feature a conversation with writer and curator Filipa Ramos, as well as the presentation of the performance "Whales Voices", by Laia Estruch, a voice solo, where the artist develops a sound path, through a vocal training to bring our voice closer to the whales' song.

The second session, on the other hand, will feature Wirawasu, a multidisciplinary artist from São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in the state of Amazonas (Brazil), who will present "Memórias de um cachorro" (Memories of a Dog), a project in the course of sound collision, conceived from the experiences in the Upper Rio Negro, exploring amateur recordings and insertion of electronic elements; as well as Panamby, whose body of work has focused on the development of sonorities as a poetic practice in the dark, in an attempt to taint the invisible and communicate in different ways, and who deals with Porto, the "Abissal" project. Both will participate in a conversation moderated by artist and researcher Gaspar Cohen.

This second day of "O Afeto da Escuta" ends with a party promoted by the Porto publisher and promoter Lovers & Lollypops, which will take place in Passos Manuel, from 11:00 p.m., and has Rezmorah (performance), Lechuga Zafira (DJ set) and Debit (DJ set) in the lineup.

A Sunday full of activities

The third and last day (Sunday) begins with a morning at the Planetário do Porto (between 10:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.), which will feature the performance of the collective of artistic and scientific experimentation, created in Mexico, Interspecifics, as well as the performance "Interdimensional Generated Space", by Italian sound artist Marta Zapparoli, a work that results from an intensive investigation into the transcendental phenomenon of the Northern Lights and their voices. The session will end with a conversation moderated by the musician, founder of Sonoscopia, Gustavo Costa.

In the afternoon, the event returns to the Galeria da Biodiversidade for two more sessions. The first will feature "Plant Attunement", by multidisciplinary artist Inês Tartaruga Água, a sound installation where humans and non-humans interact with the acoustic landscape created for the presentation space, as well as the lecture-performance of archivist, curator and researcher Andrea Zarza Casanova, who will make audible the relationships between landscape, folklore and work, through a selection of songs and field recordings, obtained from the collection of the Fonoteca Municipal do Porto, during a two-week research residency. The same session will also include the participation of Eloisa Travaglini and Sam Simon, composed of a sonic rehearsal and a listening session, from the activation of the Infrasonica platform file.

Closing the weekend and the festival, the composer, performer and improviser Ute Wassermann will perform at 7 p.m., a performance around the voice, in which she will create a visceral sound space, through the use of different types of microphones, bird whistles, lo-fi electronics, resonators, field recordings and everyday objects.

FULL PROGRAMME

Friday, November 10

Passos Manuel (Auditorium)
9:30 p.m. | Institute for Postnatural Studies - opening session
10:30 p.m. | KMRU - concert

Saturday, November 11

Galeria da Biodiversidade
From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Laraaji -workshop & concert
From 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg -video
Antoine Bertine - listening and conversation session with Filipa Ramos
Laia Estruch - performance
From 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Conversation with Panamby and Wirawasu moderated by Gaspar Cohen
Wirawasu - concert
Panamby - concert

Passos Manuel
11 p.m. | Party by Lovers & Lollypops w/
Rezmorah - performance
Lechuga Zafiro - DJ set
Debit - DJ set

Sunday, November 12

Planetário do Porto
From 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Interspecifics - concert
Marta Zapparoli - performance
Converse with Interspecifics and Marta Zapparoli moderated by Gustavo Costa (Sonoscopy)

Galeria da Biodiversidade
From 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Inês Tartaruga Água - performance
Andrea Zarza Canova - lecture-performance
Infrasonica - workshop
From 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Ute Wassermann - performance

More information is available on the website of Galeria Municipal do Porto.