Founded in 1994 by artists and activists in Los Angeles/USA, the collective uses sound art, sound and listening as a strategy for political action. Topics of the internationally active network include migration, racism, urban development and HIV/AIDS. Many projects are developed in cooperation with local groups, for example the tenants’ initiative Kotti&Co from Berlin-Kreuzberg.
A frequently used method of analysis in this context is “collective listening”, for example in the form of public sound walks. One of the network’s co-founders, u.s. artist and activist Dont Rhine, describes the method this way in this 2008 radio interview worth reading:
“A group forms around a particular problem. With the help of an object that serves for identification, in which the experienced is condensed, with the help of such an object of identification the said problem is then reflected. This collective reflection leads to an analysis, the analysis results in an action plan, the action is carried out, another object of identification is created and the whole process starts again from the beginning. This really very simple idea helped us develop an idea of the role field recordings could play in our work.”
Texts and sounds from the group’s expansive cosmos can be found on their website , and an exemplary impression of the process and structure of an Ultra-Red intervention can be found in this video from the “Practice Sessions” series at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions).