Het Concreet (NL)
Sound of Resistance – workshopsExpected end time: 14:30 hour
RD4U In de Cramer 9 Heerlen
Sounds of beauty and resistance
Radio waves are all around us. They travel through the atmosphere and carry information: voices, sounds, Morse code and even the time. Radio waves are a physical phenomenon that occurs naturally and is also used by humans to transmit information. Invisible, they are constantly moving through the space around us.
Today, we are dependent on communication technologies in all sorts of ways. Technologies that are not natural, but certainly not neutral either. The call to fill our emergency kits with analogue radio receivers brings home just how vulnerable that dependence makes us. During Cultura Nova, we’re turning that on its head: we’ll be building our own radio receivers and using them to listen to sounds of beauty and resistance.
On Saturday 5 September, you can build your own radio receiver alongside Het Concreet at the RD4U charity shop. At 3.00 pm, participants from both workshops will come together for a collective performance. Het Concreet will broadcast sounds found in the charity shop. With our homemade radios, we’ll form a collective ear that listens to what’s travelling through the space.
WORKSHOPS || 11.00 & 13.00, RD4U
During two workshops, participants will build their own radio receivers together with Het Concreet. By the end of the workshop – if all goes well – you’ll have a working radio with which you can take part in the joint performance later that afternoon.
SOUNDS OF RESISTANCE || PERFORMANCE 3.00–3.30 pm, RD4U
At 3.00 pm, we’ll switch on our radios and together let the sounds from the airwaves ring out. This will create a soundscape in which static, signals and sounds come together.
Beforehand, you’ll be given a few simple instructions, such as [scan through all frequencies], [spread out across the space] or [tune to frequency ‘X’]. We’ll practise these together before the performance begins. During the performance, the instructions will appear on banners.
Nothing can really go wrong: listening, tuning in and making sound together are at the heart of it.
Fancy joining in?
The workshop is led by Het Concreet; no soldering experience is required. There is space for a maximum of 15 participants per workshop. You can register via info@hetconcreet.com.
Het Concreet is a Tilburg-based sound collective dedicated to working with analogue electronic instruments. One of its artistic members was a guest at Cultura Nova in 2025 with the ‘Opus of a Bicycle Shed’. Sound of Resistance is a production by Het Concreet in collaboration with Intro in Situ, a production house for pioneers of sound and music that presents a number of talented creators at Cultura Nova every year.
