Martina Raponi: Theory of the Unheard

Join us for an artist discussion with Martina Raponi, facilitated by Joel Stern at Hope St Radio. 

Martina Raponi is an Italian writer and artist based in Amsterdam, NL. She is the founder of Noiserr (Noise Reading and Research), an interdisciplinary research group that explores Noise through deconstructed reading and listening sessions, and is a member of NRU (Noise Research Union), with Sonia de Jager, Cecile Malaspina, Mattin, Miguel Prado, and Inigo Wilkins.

At this special presentation Martina will introduce "NNNV" (New Noises New Voices), an extended reality work that explores Deaf and hard-of-hearing sensory modalities. This work informs Martina’s "theory of the unheard”; methods for conjuring possible sonic worlds that transcend and disrupt, through technology, normative assumptions about hearing, sensing, and the sonic.

“I have been investigating Noise since 2012. My interest in Noise comes from my father's Deafness. When I was a kid, he would lay his head against my back, asking me to speak out loud so he could "learn" my voice through the vibrations of my rib cage.  This vibratory and tactile quality of noise as an aesthetic relational object has been my very first fascination. With this, I entered a world of noise through a world of "silence": my father’s.

“My interest in Noise throughout the years shifted from an underground-music-oriented perspective to a more systemic, societal, and political understanding of the topic. I look for Noise inside complexity, and I recognise complexity as an aesthetic value.”

NNNV, Unheard, and Martina's presence in Australia have been financially supported by Stimuleringsfonds Creative Industries Netherlands.