Norient - Independent
Network for Local and Global Soundscapes - focuses on experimental
and urban music and music scenes all over the world. As an international
platform it aims to understand and show the many and often contradictory
faces of cultural globalization and localization through articles
about music, urbanism and politics, «authenticity»,
«modernity», «place» and «transnational
spaces», written by musicians, scholars and music journalists
from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the US. norient also
produces and co-produces larger and smaller projects and events.
At the moment norient is working on the scientific new media art performance
«Sonic Traces From the Arab World». Thomas Burkhalter (music anthropologist, DJ),
Simon Grab (musician and producer) and Michael Spahr (new media art, VJ) are creating a performance, which
combines anthropology and multimedia art to give new insights into contemporary Arab music and art. The opening of
the performance will be in December 2008.
Michael Spahr and Thomas Burkhalter have been working together since 2000. They have produced the documentary film
«Buy More Incense» (winner of the first prize at
Muzyka i Świat
in Krakow, Poland) and the audio-visual lecture «Soundscapes From the Edges».
