Sound Arguments 2026 OPEN CALL

Sound Arguments is an innovative laboratory-atelier for creative artists and researchers dealing with sound. Presented by the Orpheus Instituut, Ghent (BE), and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, University of Leiden (NL), Sound Arguments transcends the boundaries of art school or conservatory, art space or university to propose a new kind of creating-researching-learning community. It reaches into the broad and complex space of current art-sound practices. At Sound Arguments, participants will share, invent, listen, learn and discuss.

A free series of five encounters, it offers a unique opportunity to learn, encounter, share and discuss with a wide range of guest artists in the context of a constructive, critical and sustained community. 

Topics include

• Microphones and loudspeakers as musical instruments; composing movements for electronic sounds.
• Craft; critical listening; site.
• Sound art infrastructures; co-learning; networks; knowledge ecology; care.
• Experimentalism in folk music; composition and performance with live electronics; artistic collaboration.
• Obsolete technology and media; acoustic recording; analogue recording.
• Sound archives; close listening; listening to colonial history.
• Fabrication as a narrative tool; craft and materiality.
• Telos / tinkering; thinking with Simondon.
• Guided listening; early electronic music
• Food and sound

Guests for the series

• Juan Parra Cancino
• Jacob Eriksen
• Anette Hoffmann
• Aleksander Kolkowski
• Cécile Malaspina
• Úna Monaghan
• Halldór Úlfarsson
• Melissa Van Drie
• Cathy van Eck
• Mark Peter Wright

Dates

Sound Arguments will meet monthly from February – May 2026. Meetings will be held both in Ghent and Leiden, according to the calendar below.

• February 09-10-11 (Orpheus Instituut, Ghent)
• March 02-03 (Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden)
• March 30-31 (Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden)
• April 27-28-29 (Orpheus Instituut, Ghent)
• May 18-19-20 (Orpheus Instituut, Ghent)

Applications

Check the full call and apply before 04 January 2026.

https://orpheusinstituut.be/en/news-and-events/sound-arguments-2026