Andrei van Wyk | Research Trip

August 2022 — Music

South African musician and sound artist Andrei van Wyk’s work focuses on hypertextuality, experimental composition, muzak and the relationship between sound, noise and music within the context of human experience. His practice moves away from sound as purely aesthetic to expand on how sound widens historical narratives. His practice incorporates sound-collage, plunderphonics and free improvisation, and seeks to recreate and amplify aspects such as humour, boredom and loss, and locate these in broader historical narratives. Andrei will be based at Musikerwonhuis in Basel from 4 – 25 August 2022 for a research trip.

During his time in Switzerland, Andrei plans to continue his enquiry of methods and strategies of how musical experimentalism and sound art can be used as a conduit to investigate history and various social conditions and hierarchies. This builds on the research Andrei developed for his MA in history, focusing on using sound studies and sound art as a method to examine narratives of the past with a focus on land dispossession of coloured communities in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Andrei was invited to present this research at a recent conference at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel, and plans to continue conversations around further points of engagement.

Alongside this research, Andrei is also interested in engaging with the Swiss experimental music scene to learn more about how it operates. He explains, “I’d like to engage with different artists on a collaborative level but also research how space is used and, with full knowledge of the disparities in social conditions between South Africa and Switzerland, how spaces of experimentation can survive within the global south in sustainable manners.”

From these intersecting interests and activities, Andrei hopes to develop a collaborative body of work in the form of a performance or an album.

BIOGRAPHY

Andrei van Wyk lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He performs in various musical projects including in the Experimental Jazz band The Wretched alongside drummer Tumi Mogorosi and vocalist Gabisile Motuba and as a solo artist with his industrial-noise project Healer Oran. Andrei’s  sound work has been included in a variety of projects including the Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival, Johannesburg; the FNB Joburg Artfair, Johannesburg and Sound in Art Processes, Keleketla! Library, Johannesburg (all 2015) as well as a performer in Invisible Cities, Johannesburg (2014); Edge of Wrong, Johannesburg, (2015/7); AMAZE festival, Johannesburg (2016) and is a contributing musician to Mute Sounds’ 1 minute autohypnosis Project. He has collaborated with artists Karin Tan and Skye Quadling on We felt a Rumble, you won’t believe what happened next: TO BE DETERMINED, GoetheonMain; (2016) and at Kunstefees, Bloemfontein (2017). In 2017 Andrei was a resident artist at MAP gallery, Richmond and at the Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg in 2018. He has engaged in film work as a composer including the multi-award winning Mma Moeketsi by Reabetswe Moeti for which he was awarded for a Lake International Pan African Film Festival for best score. Additionally, he collaborated with artist Simon Gush on his exhibition Welcome to Frontier Country at Stevenson Gallery. He has also composed for dance, collaborating with Glasgow-based dance company Project X on the performance Ghost Dimension, which was conceived at the Centre for the Less Good Idea followed by performances in Glasgow, Edinburg and Manchester in the United Kingdom.