Christoph Cox

The Otolith Group’s 2010 film Hydra Decapita centers on a mythology generated in the 1990s by the Detroit-based electronic music duo Drexciya, who imagined a race of subaquatic aliens descended from Africans drowned during the Atlantic slave trade. Via a series of subtle allusions, the film connects this mythos to the case of the slave ship Zong, from which, in 1781, 132 Africans were thrown overboard by the crew and later claimed as insured cargo. Visually, the film is dark and spare, alternating between still shots of the ocean viewed from deep inside a cave, black waterscapes that freeze into obscure symbolic patterns, and brief typescripts from a character calling herself Novaya Zemlya, who struggles to make sense of fragments of the Drexciyan mythos uttered by another character identified only as The Author. The pensive electronic soundtrack is punctuated by transmissions from number stations and by a female voice that elegiacally sings passages from John Ruskin’s essay “Of Water, as Painted by Turner,” which celebrates J.M.W. Turner’s proto-abstract canvas, The Slave Ship, inspired by the case of the Zong.
In August 2014, I spoke about the film with The Otolith Group’s Kodwo Eshun at his home and studio in Stoke Newington, London.

Call for Applications:
Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art 2021 | sonsbeek20→24
online in collaboration
with sonsbeek20→24 conjunctions August 18 – 22, 2021 – 3-8:30pm CET
Curating Noise: Reverberations and the Polyvocal
The special five-day Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art program, Curating Noise: Reverberations and the Polyvocal, will take place online in conjunction with the 12th edition of the quadrennial sonsbeek20→24, developed in close dialogue with its curatorial team (including artistic director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and co-curators Antonia Alampi, Amal Alhaag, Zippora Elders, and Aude Mgba) and framework, Force Times Distance. On Labour and its Sonic Ecologies, that invites and encourages different modes of listening to make audible that which is already there, but remains unseen and unheard.
“No longer considered only a factor of disturbance, detrimental to information like static noise in the channel of communication, the evolving concept of noise also becomes constitutive of new forms of knowledge and of new ways of understanding organization.” – Cécile Malaspina, An Epistemology of Noise
This special session of Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art (SFSIA) will focus on a contemporary conception of noise that builds from the idea of listening as a participatory practice. Where in the past noise was something to be controlled and suppressed, today noise and uncertainty are entangled with one another as key concepts in the production of contingency as a driving force of innovation, creativity and resistance. As Reza Negarestani surmises in his essay, “Contingency and Complicity,” the contingent artwork can become the basis for new interactions and dynamic processes that drive the artist to novel realizations and opens up the potential of the work not assumed at its inception.
At the epicenter of sonsbeek20→24 is an investigation of global power structures which, as a result of the drift towards digitality, have taken on increasingly non-linear, unstable and topological distributed space/time forms. In the process, new plateaus – shock waves upon which extended and embodied stratifications exist as fields of immanence – have emerged. “Curating Noise: Reverberations and the Polyvocal,” uses the Third Havana Biennial
1989 as a model upon which to build a self-reflexive problematic provoked by an intellectual
and discursive turn in the apparatus of biennial production. “Curating Noise” engages the biennial apparatus in relation to its colonial history, as well as its economic and intellectual opportunity, through the epistemological problem of noise. Many of the published books and past curatorial efforts on noise (with a few exceptions such as Charlotte Mormon and Pauline Oliveros) promote a linear narrative that centers European and patriarchal perspectives. As such, most histories begin with Futurism and pass through Fluxus on its way to new forms of punk and free jazz such as in the works of Throbbing Gristle and the Boredoms. While including these histories, “Curating Noise” aims to include more geographically, culturally and otherwise diverse perspectives in order to estrange and expand the histories of noise production and understand it in radically new post-humanist ways. Considering Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s definition of puissance in A Thousand Plateaus as, “a capacity to multiply connections that may be realized by a given ‘body’ to varying degrees in different situations...thought of as a scale of intensity or fullness of existence (or a degree on such a scale), analogous to the capacity of a number to be raised to a higher ‘power,’” we are excited by potential new forms of power, or puissance, that may be generated as a result of these shared discussions.
Guest Speakers
Amal Alhaag, Ina Blom, Mathieu Copeland, Christoph Cox, Sanne Krogh Groth, Paz Guevara, Satch Hoyt, Cécile Malaspina, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Warren Neidich (founder/director), Pablo José Ramírez, Holger Schulze, Greg Tate, Victoria Vesna, and Anuradha Vikram.
Applications
Applications for Curating Noise are open to students, practitioners and scholars from the fields of art (including sound, video, photography, installation and multimedia), music, philosophy, design, architecture, art criticism, science and technology studies, critical theory, cultural studies, film and media studies, and beyond. Please see our application for more information.
About Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art
Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art (SFSIA) is a nomadic, intensive summer academy with shifting programs in contemporary critical theory. SFSIA stresses an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between art and politics. SFSIA originated in Saas-Fee, Switzerland in 2015 (after which it is named) and then migrated to Berlin, Germany in 2016 to engage a larger audience for it’s free public programs. Additional programs have been hosted in Los Angeles and New York City. SFSIA was founded and is directed by Warren Neidich and is co-directed by Barry Schwabsky. Sarrita Hunn is the assistant director.
Please see our website or contact info@sfsia.art for more information.

Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art, Extended Deadline, August 10th, Curating Noise

The five-day Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art program, Curating Noise: Reverberations and the Polyvocal, will take place online and in-person within the 12th edition of the quadrennial sonsbeek20→24, developed in close dialogue with its curatorial team (including artistic director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and co-curators Antonia Alampi, Amal Alhaag, Zippora Elders, and Aude Mgba) and framework, Force Times Distance. On Labour and its Sonic Ecologies, that invites and encourages different modes of listening to make audible that which is already there, but remains unseen and unheard.

“No longer considered only a factor of disturbance, detrimental to information like static noise in the channel of communication, the evolving concept of noise also becomes constitutive of new forms of knowledge and of new ways of understanding organization.”
–Cécile Malaspina, An Epistemology of Noise

This special session of Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art will focus on a contemporary conception of noise that builds from the idea of listening as a participatory practice. Where in the past noise was something to be controlled and suppressed, today noise and uncertainty are entangled with one another as key concepts in the production of contingency as a driving force of innovation, creativity and resistance. As Reza Negarestani surmises in his essay, “Contingency and Complicity,” the contingent artwork can become the basis for new interactions and dynamic processes that drive the artist to novel realizations and opens up the potential of the work not assumed at its inception.

At the epicenter of sonsbeek20→24 is an investigation of global power structures which, as a result of the drift towards digitality, have taken on increasingly non-linear, unstable and topological distributed space/time forms. In the process, new plateaus—shock waves upon which extended and embodied stratifications exist as fields of immanence—have emerged. Curating Noise: Reverberations and the Polyvocal, uses the Third Havana Biennial 1989 as a model upon which to build a self-reflexive problematic provoked by an intellectual and discursive turn in the apparatus of biennial production. Curating Noise engages the biennial apparatus in relation to its colonial history, as well as its economic and intellectual opportunity, through the epistemological problem of noise. Many of the published books and past curatorial efforts on noise (with a few exceptions such as Charlotte Mormon and Pauline Oliveros) promote a linear narrative that centers European and patriarchal perspectives. As such, most histories begin with Futurism and pass through Fluxus on its way to new forms of punk and free jazz such as in the works of Throbbing Gristle and the Boredoms. While including these histories, Curating Noise aims to include more geographically, culturally and otherwise diverse perspectives in order to estrange and expand the histories of noise production and understand it in radically new post-humanist ways. Considering Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s definition of puissance in A Thousand Plateaus as, “a capacity to multiply connections that may be realized by a given ‘body’ to varying degrees in different situations…thought of as a scale of intensity or fullness of existence (or a degree on such a scale), analogous to the capacity of a number to be raised to a higher ‘power,’” we are excited by potential new forms of power, or puissance, that may be generated as a result of these shared discussions.

Guest speakers
Amal Alhaag, Ina Blom, Mathieu Copeland, Christoph Cox, Sanne Krogh Groth, Paz Aburto Guevara, Cécile Malaspina, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Warren Neidich (SFSIA founder/director), Pablo José Ramírez, Holger Schulze, Greg Tate, Victoria Vesna, and Anuradha Vikram.

Realism Materialism Art (RMA) introduces a diverse selection of new realist and materialist philosophies and examines their ramifications in the arts. Encompassing neo-materialist theories, object-oriented ontologies, and neo-rationalist philosophies, RMA serves as a primer on “speculative realism,” considering its conceptual innovations as spurs to artistic thinking and practice and beyond. Despite their differences, these philosophical positions propose that thought can and does think outside itself, and that reality can be known without its being shaped by and for human comprehension. Today’s realisms and materialisms explicitly challenge many of the dominant assumptions of cultural practice and theoretical inquiry, opening up new domains of research and artistic inquiry.

Cutting across diverse thematic interests and modes of investigation, the 35 essays in RMA offer a snapshot of the emerging and rapidly changing set of ideas and practices proposed by contemporary realisms and materialisms. The book demonstrates the broad challenge of realist and materialist approaches to received disciplinary categories and forms of practice, capturing their nascent reworking of art, philosophy, culture, theory, and science, among other fields. As such, RMA expands beyond the primarily philosophical context in which realism and materialism have developed.

Contributors: Armen Avanessian, Elie Ayache, Amanda Beech, Ray Brassier, Mikko Canini, Diana Coole, Christoph Cox, Manuel DeLanda, Diedrich Diederichsen, Tristan Garcia, Iain Hamilton Grant, Elizabeth Grosz, Boris Groys, Graham Harman, Terry Horgan, Jenny Jaskey, Katerina Kolozova, James Ladyman, François Laruelle, Nathan Lee, Suhail Malik, Quentin Meillassoux, Reza Negarestani, John Ó Maoilearca, Trevor Paglen, Luciana Parisi, Matthew Poole, Matjaž Potrč, João Ribas, Matthew Ritchie, Alicia Ritson, Susan Schuppli, Steven Shaviro, Nick Srnicek, Achim Szepanski, Eugene Thacker, McKenzie Wark, and Andy Weir.

Edited by Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik
With a collection of images curated by Jenny Jaskey and Alicia Ritson

The special five-day Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art program, Curating Noise: Reverberations and the Polyvocal, will take place online in conjunction with the 12th edition of the quadrennial sonsbeek20→24, developed in close dialogue with its curatorial team (including artistic director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and co-curators Antonia Alampi, Amal Alhaag, Zippora Elders, and Aude Mgba) and framework, Force Times Distance. On Labour and its Sonic Ecologies, that invites and encourages different modes of listening to make audible that which is already there, but remains unseen and unheard.

This special session of Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art (SFSIA) will focus on a contemporary conception of noise that builds from the idea of listening as a participatory practice. Where in the past noise was something to be controlled and suppressed, today noise and uncertainty are entangled with one another as key concepts in the production of contingency as a driving force of innovation, creativity and resistance. As Reza Negarestani surmises in his essay, “Contingency and Complicity,” the contingent artwork can become the basis for new interactions and dynamic processes that drive the artist to novel realizations and opens up the potential of the work not assumed at its inception.
At the epicenter of sonsbeek20→24 is an investigation of global power structures which, as a result of the drift towards digitality, have taken on increasingly non-linear, unstable and topological distributed space/time forms. In the process, new plateaus – shock waves upon which extended and embodied stratifications exist as fields of immanence – have emerged. “Curating Noise: Reverberations and the Polyvocal,” uses the Third Havana Biennial
1989 as a model upon which to build a self-reflexive problematic provoked by an intellectual
and discursive turn in the apparatus of biennial production. “Curating Noise” engages the biennial apparatus in relation to its colonial history, as well as its economic and intellectual opportunity, through the epistemological problem of noise. Many of the published books and past curatorial efforts on noise (with a few exceptions such as Charlotte Mormon and Pauline Oliveros) promote a linear narrative that centers European and patriarchal perspectives. As such, most histories begin with Futurism and pass through Fluxus on its way to new forms of punk and free jazz such as in the works of Throbbing Gristle and the Boredoms. While including these histories, “Curating Noise” aims to include more geographically, culturally and otherwise diverse perspectives in order to estrange and expand the histories of noise production and understand it in radically new post-humanist ways. Considering Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s definition of puissance in A Thousand Plateaus as, “a capacity to multiply connections that may be realized by a given ‘body’ to varying degrees in different situations...thought of as a scale of intensity or fullness of existence (or a degree on such a scale), analogous to the capacity of a number to be raised to a higher ‘power,’” we are excited by potential new forms of power, or puissance, that may be generated as a result of these shared discussions.
Guest Speakers
Amal Alhaag, Ina Blom, Mathieu Copeland, Christoph Cox, Sanne Krogh Groth, Paz Guevara, Satch Hoyt, Cécile Malaspina, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Warren Neidich (founder/director), Pablo José Ramírez, Holger Schulze, Greg Tate, Victoria Vesna, and Anuradha Vikram.
Applications
Applications for Curating Noise are open to students, practitioners and scholars from the fields of art (including sound, video, photography, installation and multimedia), music, philosophy, design, architecture, art criticism, science and technology studies, critical theory, cultural studies, film and media studies, and beyond. Please see our application for more information.
About Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art
Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art (SFSIA) is a nomadic, intensive summer academy with shifting programs in contemporary critical theory. SFSIA stresses an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between art and politics. SFSIA originated in Saas-Fee, Switzerland in 2015 (after which it is named) and then migrated to Berlin, Germany in 2016 to engage a larger audience for it’s free public programs. Additional programs have been hosted in Los Angeles and New York City. SFSIA was founded and is directed by Warren Neidich and is co-directed by Barry Schwabsky. Sarrita Hunn is the assistant director.
Please see our website or contact info@sfsia.art for more information.