“This is what gives sound art its incomprehensible name; and, this exemplifies sound art as a relevant and vigorous exercise.” – Splice Today

MEGAPOLIS Audio Festival descends upon Philadelphia this fall as a part of the Fringe Festival and brings with it a gaggle of adventurous audio makers and noise artisans. Installations, workshops, experimental music performances and partying sprinkled in for good measure!

The MEGAPOLIS Audio Festival is a multi-day site-specific event that examines the sonic landscape of the sprawling urban environment by showcasing artists and documentarians based in a single megalopolis alongside visitors to the region. We particularly focus on the cross-pollination of knowledge championed by audio enthusiasts from different disciplines such as music, radio, installation, and film.  Artists including documentarians, technologists, musicians, educators, urban planners, scientists, and radio producers come together to celebrate the audio medium and to encourage each other to push the boundaries of sound, art, and thought. MEGAPOLIS artists typically feature works that are new, collaborative, and responsive to the urban environment within the host city. As an attendee at the MEGAPOLIS Festival you are not a member of a passive audience — you’re actively adding context to what’s coming into your ears.

Amongst the headlining artists are the incomparable Radio Atlas, Blevin Blectum and Mia Zabelka. Full schedule of events, installations and digital works here.

Day Pass 1 Events
Sept 16 from 10am–5pm

Day Pass 2 Events
Sept 17 from 10am–5pm

$30 Day Pass (general) $21 (member)
$50 2-Day Pass (general) $35 (member)

Get $5 off when you purchase a Megapolis day pass and headliner ticket together! Use the code “MEGA”!

Radio Atlas
WHYY
150 N. 6th Street
Sat, Sept 16 at 5pm
$13 (general) $9.10 (member)
Get Tickets

Radio Atlas is an English-language home for subtitled audio from around the world. A place to hear inventive documentaries, dramas, and works of sound art that have been made in languages you don’t necessarily speak.

Event funded in part by Transom.org

Blevin Blectum with Radio Wonderland
WHYY
150 N. 6th Street
Sat, Sept 16 at 8pm
$13 (general) $9.10 (member)
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Musician and multimedia artist Blevin Blectum. Combining sound, imagery, and costume, Blevin Blectum creates eccentric and mesmerizing performances that explore topics from science fiction to ornithology. Blevin is half of ‘Blectum from Blechdom’ with Kristin Grace Erickson, aka Kevin Blechdom, and a third of ‘The Traveling Bubble Ensemble,’ with Kelley Polar and Elise Kuder. On Ricky Katowicz’s ‘The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show,’ she plays the recurring role of Doctor Sound. She has performed and toured extensively since 1998, with releases on Aagoo, Estuary Ltd., Tigerbeat6, DeluxeRecs, Praemedia, Vague Terrain, Phthalo, and more. A new record on the Parisian label Darling Dada will be released June 2017.

Radio Wonderland (Joshua Fried) turns live commercial FM radio into recombinant funk by using live sound processors disguised as a vintage Buick steering wheel—and other gizmos.

Xiu Xiu with Mia Zabelka
Johnny Brenda’s
1201 Frankford Ave
Sept 17 at 7pm
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Photo by Alex Brown

The musical collective Xiu Xiu is influenced by noise, modern classical, the dance floor, post punk, experimental, minimalism, Asian percussion, and American folk music—as well as film and literature.

Mia Zabelka is a sound artist, composer as well as an amazing experimental violinist and vocalist from Vienna, with czech, jewish and french familiar background. After completing her training with a strong classical emphasis, she continued to construct and explore the limits of sound and music in a language entirely her own, based on the de- and reconstruction of the violin’s sonic possibilities, expanding the range of the instrument using live electronic devices, preparing it through the insertion of alien objects between or on the strings and innovative performance techniques.

Photo by Petra Cvelbar

Mia Zabelka describes this process as AUTOMATIC PLAYING, continuously exploring sound and music as physical phenomena, always pushing back the boundaries in experimental performances and compositions that question established notions, improving the available techniques and given structures. The violin and her own voice and body are transformed in the process into sound bodies which are at once organic and primal, screaming, lyrical, composed and explosive.

Event funded in part by Public Radio Exchange (PRX)

Daytime Events
Sept 16-17 from 10am-5pm

Includes installations, workshops, and experimental music performances at galleries and venues in the city.

Artists include: Alex Lewis, Amanda Gutierrez, Blevin Blectum, Brian House, Carl Adair, Edward Bear, Elana Gordon, Emily Cohen, Fereshteh Toosi, Jay Gregory, Jeff Towne, Jenn Grossman, Joan Schuman, Jocelyn Frank, Katya Gorker, Johann Diedrick, Karen Werner, Laura Deutch, Toby Kaufmann-Buhler, Lexie Stoia, Linda Gale Aubry, Meg Cramer, Mia Zabelka, Mike Bullock, Montgomery Kim, Olivia Bradley-Skill, Phoenix Lio(n), Scott Allison, Shira Walinsky, Steve Teare, Tim Nohe,  Tristate Synthesizer Coalition, Victoria Estok