Decolonising Instrument Design

Following on from the success of the 2024 edition, which involved an essential contribution from Afrorack and Feldermelder supported by Pro Helvetia, we are continuing the partnership to deliver another cutting-edge programme that will feature another key East Africa / Switzerland collaboration, involving Samuel Karugu and Basile Huguenin-Virchaux. The pair have collaborated on an artistic research project exploring digital musical instruments based on tunings used in East-African traditional instruments instead of the commonly used Western 12-tone tempered scale. They will develop this concept further at Kilele in collaboration with East African instrument builders and technologists. This will involve a residency leading up to a showcase, presentation and workshop sharing the outcome of their collaboration for the Kilele audiences, documented for wider distribution. Any tools developed during the project will also be made freely available for the community. The project will also be graced by Astrid Bin, an interdisciplinary artist and designer and one of Kilele 2024’s standout guests with her presentation on ‘ultra processed interfaces’.

This project will be a key part of our focus on Decolonising Instrument Design - a stream that will include numerous activities and in particular, the establishment of the Instrument Builders Lab.

More about Samuel Karagu:

Sam Karugu is a musician, producer, and DJ who explores the boundaries of sound and music. His music is experimental - it borders, blurs and mixes between Noise, metal, punk, industrial, breakcore, ambient and ‘traditional’ African music. Mostly musically ‘formally’ self-taught, but studied audio and media in film school, Sam sees, sound and music as a powerful medium especially through performance as rituals, happenings, and friendly get togethers that connect him and the audience in a visceral, cathartic and fun way that could also inform or provoke thought.

He is part of the duos Duma, Nari, Systemes Bordeliques, Usura, and solo as Final rupture of the varicose vein and Slammy Karugu among other projects. Sam is based in Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda but is always on the move on tour in Europe, Americas and other parts of the world looking for new ways to challenge himself and engage with his listeners and fans. Sam has just finished his first Asia tour in Indonesia, and is working on a solo album out on Nyege Nyege tapes, as well as a self-release of live recordings from his Indonesia tour and working on numerous new collaborative projects.

https://samkarugu.bandcamp.com/

More about Basile:

Basile Huguenin-Virchaux was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and was in contact with music from a young age, as his family was involved in the local cultural life. Beginning to learn saxophone at the age of 14, he quickly had his first show experiences through his music school and his first musical projects. At first mainly focused on jazz, he started to develop an interest in a lot of other music genres like punk, metal, as well as traditional music from around the world like balkan music and sebene, and started to learn other instruments. He took part (and still takes part) in many different bands, jam sessions and shows.

In parallel to his passion for music, Basile Huguenin-Virchaux studied Languages of Antiquity Economics and Ethnology at the university of Neuchâtel (UNINE). One of his teachers suggested he should write an article about musical practice in ancient Greece, and this is when he really discovered the concept of microtonality. Basile then explored on his own this new way of conceiving music, which was not straightforward at that time as there were almost no plugins allowing microtonal intervals. It is only a few years later, after his master in Statistics, that Basile developed a good knowledge in programming and was able to implement his own tools using the program Pure Data, allowing him to freely explore microtonality. He also started to learn the oud which opened the great world of maqam music to him.

Today, Basile Huguenin-Virchaux regularly composes microtonal music, explores and experiments with Pure Data, and recently developed a microtonal breakcore live performance using this same program. He is also actively learning to play maqam music (and broader microtonality) on the saxophone and other instruments, among other projects.

More about Astrid:

S. Astrid Bin is an interdisciplinary artist and designer. Past endeavors have included baiting and then unbaiting 100 mousetraps with her hands, making a picture of a pigeon from 538 pieces of toast, documenting an attempt at making a million dollars in a year, photographing over 4000 banana skins, locking herself in a disused bank vault for ten nights, making light into a drawing medium, sending hundreds of postcards to an empty building, shaving her head, and occupying a phone booth for 24 hours. She has received death threats, hate mail and international press.

Her work examines the poetry in everyday things and the connections between people and their environments, and blurs, skips over and stamps on the line between art and design practice. She works two dimensionally (works on paper, text pieces, photography, printed projects, interfaces), three dimensionally (installation, art in public spaces, and reactive objects), and four dimensionally (sound, video, performance and interactive works). As an art and design researcher, she applies an art-based approach to design problems spanning interfaces, public space, new uses for games, the role of fun in the things we use, and re-imagining the music listening experience.

She has exhibited in Canada, England, Northern Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Germany, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in media and art technology at Queen Mary, University of London.

With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council.