Keynotes

Patricia Alessandrini

Patricia Alessandrini is a composer/sound artist, electronics performer, instrument builder and researcher actively engaging with notions of canonicity, representation, interpretation, perception and memory, often in a social and political context. Her interactive, intermedial and theatrical compositions and her research have been presented in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia, and in more than 15 European countries, at festivals such as Archipel, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Electric Spring, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Heidelberger Frühling, Gaudeamus, Mostly Mozart, Musica Strasbourg, rainy days, Ruhrtriennale, Salzburg Biennale, TIME:SPANS, Wien Modern and Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik.

She studied at the Conservatorio di Musica di Bologna Giovan Battista Martini, Conservatoire National de Région de Strasbourg and IRCAM, and holds PhDs from Princeton University and the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) respectively. She is a Professor of Artistic Research at the HEMU – Haute École de Musique, HES-SO Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale, and previously taught Composition at Stanford University, Sonic Arts at Goldsmiths College, University of London and Composition with Technology at Bangor University. She has been awarded Guggenheim (2022) and Radcliffe (2024) fellowships.

Basile Zimmermann

Basile Zimmermann is a sinologist and a sociologist of technology. He is Senior Lecturer at the Global Studies Institute in the University of Geneva. He is the author of Waves and Forms: Electronic Music Devices and Computer Encodings in China (MIT Press, Inside Technology series, 2015), and Popular Humanities: The Culture of Things [in French] (Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2023). His current research projects focus on anthropology of innovation in China and the Middle East, with a particular interest in digital infrastructures and knowledge production.