From April 9 to 11, 2026, the Department of Music's Sound Practices and Intermedia Lab (SPIL) will host Critical Sounds, a symposium and festival presenting work situated at the intersection of sound studies, composition/installation/performance of sound practices, as well as electroacoustic music produced through critical, experimental, and interdisciplinary approaches. The symposium/festival also brings the influential electronic dance music scene of Chicago into the conversation.
Critical Sounds features a keynote speaker, performances, practice-based research presentations selected through a curated call, a workshop and open studios showcasing students’ works.
Critical Sounds will be hosted at the Greenline Performing Arts Center & Arts Incubator, Logan Center for the Arts Performance Penthouse (901), Experimental Sound Studio (E.S.S) and Fulton Hall in Goodspeed Hall at the Music Department of UChicago.
View the full schedule and featured guests below, and visit the SPIL website to register.
Full Schedule
All events are free and open to the public via open registration unless otherwise indicated. Please register for the events.
Thursday, April 9
6:00 – 9:00 PM, Experimental Sound Studio (ESS)
Patchbent Season IV: Shortwave Collective: Building an Open Wave-Receiver
Friday, April 10
1:00 – 4:30 PM, Arts Incubator: Flex Space (2nd Floor)
Open Studios: UChicago Students
5:00 PM, GLPAC: E&A Theater
Keynote Lecture: Gascia Ouzounian
8:00 PM, GLPAC: E&A Theater
Performance: Evicshen (Victoria Shen)
Saturday, April 11
9:30 AM – 1:30 PM, Logan Center Penthouse (901)
Practice-Based Research Presentations (Curated Open Call)
2:30 – 4:00 PM, Logan Center Penthouse (901)
Colloquium Talk: Evicshen (Victoria Shen)
4:30 – 6:00 PM, Fulton Hall, Goodspeed Hall
Performance: Heather Roche
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Arts Incubator: Flex Space (2nd Floor)
Open Studios: UChicago Students
7:30 – 9:00 PM, GLPAC: E&A Theater
UChicago Student/Faculty/Community Performances
9:30 – 11:00 PM, GLPAC: E&A Theater
Closing Party: DJ Lady D
Featured Guests
- Gascia Ouzounian is the keynote speaker, an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Oxford and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council–funded project Sonorous Cities: Toward a Sonic Urbanism (SONCITIES). Her research explores sound, urbanism, violence, and systems of power, with particular attention to the political dimensions of listening. She is the author of Stereophonica: Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts (MIT Press) and The Trembling City: The Sonic and Atmospheric Violence of Vibrational Warfare (forthcoming from MIT Press, October 2026). Ouzounian is also editor of the forthcoming volume Sonic Urbanism: A Critical Guide (Bloomsbury Academic). Her work bridges scholarship, artistic practice, and curatorial experimentation, and she has collaborated widely with architects, sound artists, and urbanists internationally. Through her writing, teaching, and public engagement, she develops new frameworks for understanding how sound shapes public, civic, and urban life.
- Evicshen (Victoria Shen). Victoria Shen is a sound artist, experimental music performer, and instrument-maker based in San Francisco. Shen’s sound practice is concerned with the spatiality/physicality of sound and its relationship to the human body. Her music features analog modular synthesizers, vinyl/resin records, and self-built electronics. Eschewing conventions in harmony and rhythm in favor of extreme textures and gestural tones, Shen uses what she calls “chaotic sound” to oppose signal and information, eluding traditionally embedded meaning. Shen’s multimedia practice extends beyond musical composition and performance to include installation and non-traditional methods of distribution. Her DIY approach to deconstructing the concepts of “materiality, value and mass production” both integrate and re-contextualize the formats of the readymade and assemblage techniques. For example, the album art for her debut LP, Hair Birth, utilizes copper to transform the cover into a loudspeaker through which the record can be played. In 2021, Shen produced a series of cut-up records in cast resin embedded with found materials, functioning not only as playable music media but as unique art objects. For recent performances, she pioneered the use of Needle Nails, acrylic nails with embedded turntable styluses, which allow her to play up to 5 tracks of a record at once. Needle Nails, Levitating speaker, and her Noise Combs are some of the objects created by her as part of an extensive repertoire of innovations in the design of sound augmentation. These sculptural elements invite the viewer to unpack one’s relationship with the material possibilities for creating sound.
- DJ Lady D (Darlene Jackson). DJ Lady D is an American multifaceted artist from Chicago whose extensive contributions to the music industry span a wide range of roles. As a DJ and producer, she captivates audiences with her soulful sound and energetic performances. Her own city has dubbed her as “Chicago’s House Music Queen,” through her dynamic sets, infused with infectious energy and seamless mixes, DJ Lady D has garnered a loyal following and reputation as a thrilling headliner and a prominent representative of Black women in electronic music. She is also the visionary owner of D’lectable Music, a label that nurtures emerging talent and drives the evolution of music. DJ Lady D has been inspired by other artists such as Lil Louis, Depeche Mode, D’Angelo, and Cocteau Twins. She formed an all-female DJ collective called Superjane to prove that female DJs were more than a novelty. In 2011, she became the first and only Black female DJ to ever play at Lollapalooza. In addition to playing in events such as Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), Arc Music Festival, and at the United Center, DJ Lady D has toured across all of North America, Europe, Russia, and Asia. DJ Lady D was recently elected to the Board of Governors for the Recording Academy’s Chicago Chapter where she engages in outreach and professional development for the Chicago music community.In 2024, DJ Lady D signed her song “A Deep-Felt Love” to Defected Records and was released on the Soulfuric Deep Imprint. It debuted at #1 in the Deep House charts on Traxsource.com.
- Heather Roche. Born in Canada, clarinetist Heather Roche lives in London. Referred to as “The Queen of Extended Techniques” on BBC Radio 3, she appears regularly as a soloist and chamber musician at festivals across Europe. She currently plays with Apartment House, and has had a duo with accordionist Eva Zöllner since 2017, with whom she has toured Mexico, Sweden, Colombia, Turkey and Brazil, and as a duo with double bassist Dominic Lash. She has performed as a soloist with the BBCSSO, and performed with ensembles including Riot Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, the LSO, Musikfabrik, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Red Note, manufaktur für aktuelle musik, and Mimitabu, etc. Her blog on writing for the clarinet and her new app for clarinet multiphonics are widely recognised as leading resources for composers and clarinetists interested in contemporary technique. She teaches clarinet at the Darmstadt Summer Course. She has solo albums on the NMC and Métier labels, and has also recorded more than thirty records for the Another Timbre label. For ten years she was the Reviews Editor of TEMPO. She holds an MMus from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and a PhD from the University of Huddersfield.
- Shortwave Collective. Shortwave Collective is an international feminist artist group using the electromagnetic spectrum as artistic material. They deliver workshops constructing open and untunable radio receivers that connect the listener to a fusion of natural radio emissions and human-generated transmissions. They have produced long-form broadcasts for PAM (2025) and Radio Art Zone (2022), and, as part of the Struer Tracks Biennial for Sound and Listening (2023), hosted a Living Radio Lab. Their collective practice includes performances and installations, most recently for Somaphon Festival (DE), School of Commons (CH), and at Cafe Oto (UK). Recent artistic research projects include Radio-Dreaming into the Electromagnetic Commons (supported by School of Commons) and Becoming Citizens of the 11 Metre Band (developed during a tekhnē online residency). Reflections on their methodology for radio-listening as a plural, situated and embodied endeavour are shared in Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear (eds. Revell & Shin, 2024).