Cutting-edge Eora arts collective SOFT CENTRE makes its long-awaited Narrm debut with SUPERMODEL, an expansive three-day program of ecstatic performances, deep-dive keynotes, screenings and workshops unfolding at the State Library Victoria from 29-31 August.

SOFT CENTRE’sSUPERMODEL culminates in a late-night performance spectacle in heritage book-lined halls, domed reading rooms, and stairwells. Highlights include Harrison Hall, Sam Mcgilp, Eek and Female Wizard's STACK, a mind-melting multimedia experiment fusing live cinema, physicality, and harsh noise. Gabber Modus Operandi and Björk producer Hulubalang [IDN] teams up with Brandon Tay [SG] to present a new A/V show BUNYI BUNYI TUMBAL, a hauntological reimaging of Indonesia’s violent colonial past. Marcus Whale’s operatic retelling of the Tower of Babel, featuring Andrea Illés, Mara Galagher, Zane Edwards, and Tom Denize, explores the fraught search for a perfect universal language.

The La Trobe Reading Room hosts a songbook by Machine Listening, featuring Tomomi Adachi [JPN] and Jennifer Walshe [IR]. Sonya Holowell and Ben Carey present an improvised electro-acoustic dialogue as Sumn Conduit. Sarah Aiken debuts Spanning, her Chunky Move Activators commission, while Brian Fuata unveils a newly commissioned improvised performance incorporating casual conversation, swearing, and ghosted ephemera.

Alina Astrova, co-founder of Hype Williams, performs as Lolina [EST], presenting her Unrecognisable concept album. Speaker Music (DeForrest Brown Jr.) [ex-USA] presents a new site specific live set, and polymath Jessika Khazrik [LBN] unveils a ‘hyper-bodily’ live set, fusing machine-learned vocal techniques with Sufi hadra rituals and ornamental singing traditions.

The Quad becomes a deep-listening space with sets by Aarti Jadu, salllvage, Laces, and tongsuōforever, alongside chimeric installations by 2 dual. Stacey Collee performs a durational rendition of Kylie Minogue’s I Believe in You, and Library Muzak, featuring Harold (Steeplejack), Emelyne (PBS), and Niph, closes the event with a hallucinogenic burst of vision and sound.

Within this polyphonic patchwork, the Library dissolves into an unfinished, fragmentary and fertile site of resistance and collective mythmaking. The contents of SUPERMODEL cannot easily be processed by a systematised logic; its properties evade reduction by remaining oversized, open-source and non-linear.

Full schedule and details.