E. Blaney . . . M. Bojadzijev . . . P. Garcia . . . J. Graham . . . T. Paggett . . .
E. Perkins . . . D. Rhine . . . R. Sember . . . L. Vilchis.
Influences
In practice, influences on Ultra-red include ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), CHAMP (Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project), Kanak Attak, Los Jornaleros del Norte, The Monitoring Group, and Union de Vecinos. [ . . . ] In theory, influences on Ultra-red include Eqbal Ahmad, Louis Althusser, Samir Amin, Ella Baker, Etienne Balibar, Lauren Berlant, Grace Lee Boggs, Leonardo Boff, Wendy Brown, John Cage, Michel Chion, Douglas Crimp, Guy Debord, Rosalyn Deutsche, Mladen Dolar, Orlando Fals-Borda, Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, Sigmund Freud, Gustavo Gutierrez, Rosalind Krauss, Julia Kriseva, Jacques Lacan, Henri Lefebvre, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Karl Marx, Antonio Negri, Michel Pecheux, Jacques Ranciere, R. Murray Schafer, Pierre Schaeffer, Jon Sobrino, Gayatri Spivak and the theorization from within the struggle. [ . . . ] In materialization, influences on Ultra-red include _able, Horace Andy, Art of Noise, Art & Language, The Associates, Autechre, Louise "Miss Lou" Bennett, Beta Bodega Coalition, Blaze, Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell, AA Bronson, Cabaret Voltaire, John Cage, Colectivo Situaciones, Cornelius Cardew, Aimé Césaire, Roque Dalton, Christopher DeLaurenti, dumb type, Morton Feldman, Luc Ferrari, John Fife, Mr. Fingers, First Choice, Andrea Fraser, General Idea, Diamanda Galas, Gamble and Huff, Philip Glass, Felix Gonzales Torres, Gran Fury, Sharon Hayes, Emma Hedditch, Ashley Hunt, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Jones, Sarah Kanouse, Mary Kelly, Laibach, Sol Lewitt, La Lleca, Lucky Kitchen, LTTR, Mad Professor, Manoa Free University, Sebastian Meissner, Stephanie Mills, Meredith Monk, Robert Morris, The O'Jays, Oval, Eddie Peel, Sarah Pierce, Gillo Pontecorvo, Steve Reich, Martha Rosler, Situationist International, The Speculative Archive, Terre Thaemlitz, Temporary Services, King Tubby, Underground Resistance, David Wojnarovicz and Yello.
Occupying the borders between art and organizing, sound artists Ultra-red approach electronic music as a means of militant sound investigation, directly engaging political struggle. Electronica becomes a syntax for action research: analysing the global justice movement through minimal house music, resisting gentrification with IDM-like sonic abstractions, mapping the soundscapes of migrant struggles, and performing AIDS activism with an electroacoustic toolbox. [ . . . ]
With eleven associates working in North America and Europe, Ultra-red pursue a dynamic exchange between art and politics producing radio broadcasts, performances, recordings, and installations. Founded in 1994 by two AIDS activists, Ultra-red have 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. [ . . . ]
Ultra-red has performed in some of the most prestigious electronic media arts festivals such as Sonar (Barcelona), Avanto (Helsinki), Transmediale (Berlin), and Futuresonic (Manchester). Their social process sound art works have appeared in the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), Museum Serralves (Porto) and Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt). They have conducted militant investigations in the form of research tours and residencies in Serbia, Mexico, Austria, Ireland, UK, and throughout North America. Tracks by Ultra-red have appeared on labels Mille Plateaux (Frankfurt), Fat Cat (UK), Beta Bodega (Miami), Antiopic (New York), Soundslike (UK), and Comatonse (Japan). The group also runs the fair-use online record label and archive, Public Record. [ . . . ]
If a sound art, like a sound politics, can be characterized by duration, process and the production of space, then the time has come to turn on the question of art and politics. The moment has come to realize the question in proximity to social movements. [ . . . ]
In musical terms, the key to the problem exists in the problem.
