Spatial audio DJ performance made from audio sourced from Youtube videos of sound systems at protests and Notting Hill Carnival. IKLECTIK, London 27/05/23.

AV Lecture @ Supernormal Festival 03/08/25.

Supernormal Programme Note:

Jake Williams will lead a talk, subtitled ‘sound systems, resistance, allyship and utopia’, which will explore the role of sound systems in protest actions in the UK. It will draw on the history of Rock Against Racism, 1990s community sound system events such as the Hackney Homeless Festival and Notting Hill Carnival, alongside observations of more recent actions by La Thesis, Sisters Uncut and the R3 Sound System. It will ask how feelings of joy and the utopian claiming of urban space, so often linked to the political potential of dance music, can be deployed in effective resistance that works ‘within, against and beyond’ current systems of state control, capitalism, patriarchy and racism. It will also use this enquiry to ask what meaningful allyship in music might look like in 2025.

IKLECTIK image by LiminalWarp.com