Artist
Activist art has come to signify a
particular emphasis on appropriated aesthetic forms whose political
content does the work of both cultural analysis and cultural action. The
art collaboration Ultra-red propose a political-aesthetic project that
reverses this model. If we understand organizing as the formal practices
that build relationships out of which people compose an analysis and
strategic actions, how might art contribute to and challenge those very
processes? How might those processes already constitute aesthetic forms?
In the worlds of sound art and modern
electronic music, Ultra-red pursue a fragile but dynamic exchange
between art and political organizing. Founded
in 1994 by two AIDS
activists, Ultra-red have over the years expanded to include artists,
researchers and organisers from different social movements including the
struggles of migration, anti-racism, participatory community
development, and the politics of HIV/AIDS.
Collectively, the group have produced
radio broadcasts, performances, recordings, installations, texts and
public space actions (ps/o). Exploring acoustic space as enunciative of
social relations, Ultra-red take up the acoustic mapping of contested
spaces and histories utilising sound-based research (termed Militant
Sound Investigations) that directly engage the organizing and analyses
of political struggles.
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