Sound System Tactics

Soundsystems are a custom stack of speakers created for amplification with a strong grass roots history beginning in Jamaica in the 1960’s, having developed into a huge cultural phenomenon since. 

This curriculum will be designed and grounded on communal listening and understanding sound systems as part of a larger cultural/social and political/technological space of amplification and collectivity, and think through sound. 

We often forget, soundsystem culture comes from a space of politics, self representation, amplification and sovereignty. Soundsystems emerge as an often overlooked anti-colonial and solidarity practice and through this course we want to explore and surface what interdisciplinary tactics and learnings can come from this approach to self organising. This curriculum is for everyone interested in these ideas. 

Key questions underpinning this course:

1. What role are soundsystems playing right now in Narrm?

2. What are their possibilities for the future?

3. Why and how is this grassroots ethos so important at this socio-cultural-political moment?

Delivery mode: In person at IPCS, 78-80 Curzon Street, North Melbourne, 3051, Wurundjeri Country

Days/times:  Sunday 2PM-4PM AEST.

• Week 1: Sunday 12 July
• Week 2: Sunday 19 July 
• Week 3: Sunday 21 July 
• Week 4: Sunday 26 July 
• Week 5: Sunday 2 August
• Week 6: Sunday 9 August

Scholarship places: full fee scholarship places are available for First Nations or unwaged participants. Please email info@ipcs.org.au with a brief EOI to apply.

Accessibility: Please note that IPCS is not wheelchair accessible. There are several steps to the room from the front door of the building (78-80 Curzon St). Masks and hand sanitizer will be available. If you have any accessibility queries and/or requirements, please reach out to us at info@ipcs.org.au

Course Coordinators: 

Dr Suneel Jethani is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Design and Society at University of Technology Sydney and previously worked for the Victorian Government's Digital Design and Innovation Branch. He is the author of The Politics and Possibilities of Self Tracking (2021), Openness in Practice (2021) and has published in Body, Space & Technology, Continuum, Cultural Studies, Griffith Review and Conjunctions: Trans-disciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation. Suneel is a first generation Indian-Australian whose work on techno-cultures is informed by being a survivor of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster.

Porobibi is a Papuan Melanesian artist, fundraiser and social architect, currently based in Footscray, Naarm. He uses storytelling through music, spoken word, and community organising to highlight movements of resistance and continuity of culture.He has background in advocacy work and is passionate about using creative projects to develop accessible opportunities, engage collaborative works, and share cross-cultural storytelling through people’s lived experience. 

Dr. Lucreccia Quintanilla has over decades built a cultural practice which is comprised of various artistic modalities.Her work is concerned with sound, culture and collectivity. She has worked as a Co-Director/ CEO of sound focused organisation Liquid Architecture as well as completing her artistic practice-led Doctoral research. She has presented her research at the Sound System Outernational Conference in Naples, Goldsmiths University and In 2014 she constructed her own soundsystem. She edited issue 19.1 of Un Magazine: Resonant Imaginaries and sound clashes, with a focus on artists writing critically on sound and collectivity. Lucreccia migrated from El Salvador to Australia as a teenager during the armed conflict.

IPCS is located on Wurundjeri Country. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri peoples of the Eastern Kulin nation as the sovereign owners and custodians of the land; sovereignty was never ceded and connection to Country is ongoing. IPCS stands with Indigenous struggles for liberation from settler colonialism and imperialism on this land and globally.