Sounds of the Underground: A Cultural, Political and Aesthetic Mapping of Underground and Fringe Music by Stephen Graham

Author:Stephen Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 2018-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

8.1. Arika

Arika is a Scottish-based organization that runs events giving a platform to practices that, in their own words, “could variously be described as DIY, experimental, underground or autonomous”1 (difficulties of classification arise here as ever). Arika’s two primary festivals until 2011 were INSTAL and Kill Your Timid Notion. It also ran Music Lover’s Field Companion from 2004 to 2007 and many one-off tours, such as the 2006 Resonant Spaces program of John Butcher and Akio Suzuki concerts. Arika’s two festivals were subsumed into a wider thematic-based program in 2011, which has so far seen them stage six “Episodes,” crosses between “salons, festivals and live magazines,”2 between January 2012 and January 2015, featuring music, philosophy, film, and art, all orbiting certain themes. The theme for the second episode, for example, was the question of how “ideas of nihilism, darkness, subjectivity and abjection play out in experimental music, performance art, supernatural horror; in neuroscience or philosophy.”3 Arika’s events are usually staged in Glasgow, most commonly at venues such as Tramway and the Arches, although they also organize concerts and other events elsewhere; “A Survey Is a Process of Listening,” for example, took place at the Whitney Museum in New York in May 2012.

Arika is a particularly interesting case study in this context since its programming of underground (etc.) music is accompanied by a correspondingly radical or “underground” set of political convictions. Its festivals, though, are heavily supported by the state. We’ve already seen how this kind of situation might be seen in codetermining terms but also how it might open Arika up to accusations of contradiction. David Keenan, ever the provocateur, underlined in this respect what he sees as the contradictions in radical actors taking state funding in his provocation-question, “Is there anything more contradictory and hypocritical than a ‘radical’ music festival that’s essentially government sponsored?”4 I’ll come back to this, but for now I’d point out that such possible contradictions are directly acknowledged by Arika in its own publicity:

Page 146 →We talk about, support and undertake this kind of work, whilst paying for this through public funding. We’ve decided to do this so that we can be involved in things that maybe make a bigger impact, without having to rely on any commercial income. We are not-for-profit.5

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.