Aura Satz

Think of early electronic music and you’ll likely see men pushing buttons, knobs, and boundaries. While electronic music is often perceived as a boys' club, the truth is that from the very beginning women have been integral in inventing the devices, techniques and tropes that would define the shape of sound for years to come.

In an age of intersecting political, man-made and ecological disasters, ‘Preemptive Listening’ is an ode to the sirens that are and those that could be. Siren compositions from over 20 contemporary musicians form a resonant voice to ask; Does an alarm have to be alarming?

Philosopher Johnny Golding ruminates on a formative childhood experience, when her father brought home an early prototype of night vision he was working on for the American Military 'Project Eyeglass'. Shot using corrupted night-vision footage, the film explores Johnny's interest in quantum physics, entanglement and her philosophy of Radical Matter.

Archival footage of a flamenco dancer is reconfigured to reveal a trance-like frenzy underlying the contorted gestures of the dancer.

A short film about the Argentine electroacoustic composer Beatriz Ferreyra, an original pioneer of early musique concrète alongside Pierre Schaeffer during the ‘50s and ‘60s. Here she discusses her ‘sound hunting’ recording techniques, and other thoughts on sound montage and spatialization. Featuring creaking doors, barking dogs and rainbow hands. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020

A short 16mm film which serves as part 1 of a larger research project on sonic obedience and disobedience through the trope of the siren. It posits the siren's loud glissando wail as a conditioned and learned signal, one that can potentially be perceptually and musically rewired. For this first chapter of the project, Lebanese trumpet improviser Mazen Kerbaj has composed a new siren sound using circular breathing, alongside the actor and activist Khalid Abdalla's account of the siren as the emblematic sound of resistance, oppression, and lost futures during the Arab Spring. Shot on 16mm, the film is literally driven by its soundtrack, as the voice becomes a beacon, activating emergency rotating lights.

In an age of intersecting political, man-made and ecological disasters, ‘Preemptive Listening’ is an ode to the sirens that are and those that could be. Siren compositions from over 20 contemporary musicians form a resonant voice to ask; Does an alarm have to be alarming?

Philosopher Johnny Golding ruminates on a formative childhood experience, when her father brought home an early prototype of night vision he was working on for the American Military 'Project Eyeglass'. Shot using corrupted night-vision footage, the film explores Johnny's interest in quantum physics, entanglement and her philosophy of Radical Matter.

Philosopher Johnny Golding ruminates on a formative childhood experience, when her father brought home an early prototype of night vision he was working on for the American Military 'Project Eyeglass'. Shot using corrupted night-vision footage, the film explores Johnny's interest in quantum physics, entanglement and her philosophy of Radical Matter.

Archival footage of a flamenco dancer is reconfigured to reveal a trance-like frenzy underlying the contorted gestures of the dancer.

A short film about the Argentine electroacoustic composer Beatriz Ferreyra, an original pioneer of early musique concrète alongside Pierre Schaeffer during the ‘50s and ‘60s. Here she discusses her ‘sound hunting’ recording techniques, and other thoughts on sound montage and spatialization. Featuring creaking doors, barking dogs and rainbow hands. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020

A short 16mm film which serves as part 1 of a larger research project on sonic obedience and disobedience through the trope of the siren. It posits the siren's loud glissando wail as a conditioned and learned signal, one that can potentially be perceptually and musically rewired. For this first chapter of the project, Lebanese trumpet improviser Mazen Kerbaj has composed a new siren sound using circular breathing, alongside the actor and activist Khalid Abdalla's account of the siren as the emblematic sound of resistance, oppression, and lost futures during the Arab Spring. Shot on 16mm, the film is literally driven by its soundtrack, as the voice becomes a beacon, activating emergency rotating lights.

During World War II, it was mostly women who - as human computers - did calculations for ballistic tests and early computers. Satz poses questions about visual aesthetics based on research into forensic tests, scientific test images and punch cards full of numerical data. Every projectile is an extension of the eye.

Short film by Aura Satz & Lis Rhodes.

Expanding the cycle of Radigue’s Occam Ocean acoustic works, Occam Delta XX is a trio composition featuring Aura Satz, Rhodri Davies and Julia Eckhardt. Radigue transmitted a new score image (or ‘living score’ as she calls them), an image associated with water, to film-maker Satz and long-term musical collaborators Davies and Eckhardt. Rather than producing a film that documents the music and sits outside of it, the film participates in the logic of the score and is developed in an open weave with the composer and musicians.