Ultra-red are a

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

collective founded in 1994 by two

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

activists, Dont Rhine and Marco Larsen. Originally based in Los Angeles, the

art collective An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything that is relevant to the needs ...

has expanded over the years with members across North American and Europe. Members in Ultra-red range from artists, researchers and organizers from different

social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...

s including the struggles of migration,

anti-racism Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate a ...

participatory Citizen Participation or Public Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions—and ideally exert influence—regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participato ...

community development The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists ...

, anti-gentrification, and the politics of HIV/AIDS.Der Audioaktivismus von Ultra-red. Klang als Technologie des Raumes. In: Österreichischer Rundfunk ORF (Austrian Broadcasting), premiered 10th Juli 2008
(in German)

Artist activists

With an art they describe on their website as "Exploring acoustic space as enunciative of social relations," Ultra-red develop explicitly political art projects, sometimes in the form of radio broadcasts, performances, recordings, or installations. Known for their militant brand of political

ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It u ...

along with artist

Terre Thaemlitz Terre Thaemlitz is a musician, public speaker, and owner of the record label Comatonse Recordings. Thaemlitz's work critically combines themes of identity politics – including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race – with an ...

, Ultra-red are also part of a wave of

conceptual artists Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called instal ...

who combine participatory art with their own commitments to political organizing. Other artists working in a similar vein include Chicago's

Temporary Services Temporary Services is an art group of three people based in Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), and Copenhagen, Denmark. Temporary Services has created art projects, public events, publications, and exhibitions since 1998. On their ...

, Berlin's Kein Collective and, in New York, LTTR. Following their remixes of Thaemlitz' ''Still Life with Numerical Analysis'' in 1998, Ultra-red joined Thaemlitz on the German label

Mille Plateaux ''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: link=no, Mille plateaux) is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborativ ...

for their first two albums; ''Second Nature: An Electroacoustic Pastoral'' (1999) and ''Structural Adjustments'' (2000). Through these releases and others, Ultra-red developed a kind of ambient sound activism combining

situationist The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

radicalism with the sound research techniques of the

acoustic ecology Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is a discipline studying the relationship, mediated through sound, between human beings and their environment. Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murr ...

movement. In 2004, Ultra-red launched their own

creative commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

online label, Public Record, to showcase works of politically engaged ambient music. In addition to Ultra-red, other artists to appear on Public Record include Elliot Perkins (formerly "Phonem"), Sony Mao,

Sebastian Meissner Sebastian Meissner (born 1969 in Częstochowa, Poland) is an artist, electronic musician, journalist, radio-producer and photographer. Under monikers such as ''Random Inc'', ''Random Industries'' and ''Bizz Circuits'' he released several albums f ...

(aka Klimek) and

The Soft Pink Truth The Soft Pink Truth is an experimental house music side-project from Drew Daniel, one-half of experimental electronic music duo Matmos. Daniel started the project on a dare from Matthew Herbert that he could not produce a house record. ''Do You P ...

.Catalogue of Public Records, in: Website of Public Records
/ref> Although the group is unapologetic about its

Leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

political commitments, the name Ultra-red apparently designates no affiliation with any specific political party or organization.

References

External links

Ultra-redPublic Records''In Concert: Alan Gilbert on Ultra-red''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ultra-red American artist groups and collectives Ambient music groups

Artist activists

See also

References

External links