Transistors

TRANSISTORS, or, acoustic cultures of transference resisters and empire deserters TRANSISTORS is a series of audio projects that ask the question: are migrants mere victims? Or are they/we empire's resisting subjects? Are they/we nothing more than the spectre haunting the late-capitalist imaginary or are they/we transference resisters, deserters of the imperial order?* For years, the electronic music group Ultra-red asked these questions within the context of the global electronica market. While many artists participate in a cosmopolitan milieu of touring, travel, expatriation and cross-border collaboration, few give audition to their own political conditions. Curated by the Ultra-red organization, TRANSISTORS asks artists to consider their status within the global movement of migrant resistance. TRANSISTORS is a series of projects released through Ultra-red's web-only archive, Public Record. Each release reflects on the conditions of 21st century desertion and resistance to empire. From the corridos of day-laborers in LA to the transcontinental narratives of Southeast Asian immigrants in Europe, from the domestic dramas of transnational same-sex couples to the oceanic tales of Caribbean migrants in Miami, TRANSISTORS is the sound of globalization from the bottom-up. TRANSISTORS sounds out migrant impulses, uncooperative, contradictory in relation to host cultures, and unruly in relation to the global division of labor and immiseration.