« Special Event » Oscillation Festival 2021: Tuned Circuits

Tuned Circuits, the 2021 edi­tion of Oscillation Festival, bor­rows its title from Daphne Oram, the ear­ly elec­tron­ic com­pos­er and instru­ment inven­tor. In Oram’s work and writ­ing we glimpse the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a par­al­lel between elec­tron­ic and bio­log­i­cal cir­cuits, and a desire to per­ceive phe­nom­e­na simul­ta­ne­ous­ly from var­i­ous sides. More broad­ly, the fes­ti­val looks at prac­tices and phe­nom­e­na of tun­ing. Tuning is a fun­da­ment of music mak­ing. To think in terms of tun­ing is to think in terms of rela­tions; of one thing com­ing into con­so­nance or dis­so­nance with anoth­er, of one thing colour­ing and affect­ing anoth­er. It is also to think in terms of time, since tun­ing requires a process of con­stant cal­i­bra­tion: what is now in tune will not stay that way.

Oscillation — Tuned Circuits takes place over 4 days as a live broad­cast from MILL, Brussels and addi­tion­al loca­tions. The fes­ti­val will mix talks, per­for­mances and works for radio. Each day focuss­es on a sub-the­mat­ic: attun­ing, as a move­ment of con­ver­gence; feed­back, as a cir­cu­lar move­ment which ampli­fies itself; detun­ing, as a move­ment of unlearn­ing and a con­di­tion for regen­er­a­tion. The open­ing evening we ded­i­cate to Daphne Oram, whose research the­mat­ic we take as our own: ​“to fol­low curiosi­ties with­out flinching”.

Oscillation Festival is a project by Q‑O2 werk­plaats. This edi­tion is host­ed by MILL with the sup­port of Needcompany, the Vlaamse Gemeenschap, the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, among others.