Venus Ex Machina is the composition and production alias of Nontokozo F. Sihwa. She has contributed sounds and music to a range of projects spanning releases on labels such as AD93, NON Worldwide and Optimo Music in addition to installations for Hyperdub’s lauded Ø series and the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. In 2021, she won the PRS Foundation Oram Award for innovation in music and sound technologies. Venus Ex Machina is currently engaged in a variety of commissions and collaborative experiments including development of a score for playwright Florence Keith-Roach, and a commission by American artist Victoria Rogers, focusing on music for dreaming. She is soon to undertake further studies at the National Film & Television School and work on her third album is also underway, and it will feature collaborators such as drummer Valentina Magaletti, cellist Amy Langley and violinist Florence Rutherford-Jones.
Venus brought her boundless curiosity and exacting precision to MONOM’s monument of spatial sound where she spent an intensive two weeks rewiring her compositional mind, resulting in the site-specific composition »Marshlands« which draws from her interest in futurism and posthumanism, and sketches around the outer bounds of the sonic possibilities of this imposing space. The piece is presented as a world premiere.
Before, the part »Fire« of the multi-piece composition »The Elements: Aether, Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind« will be presented, likewise as a Berlin premiere. Created and spatialized by a group of artists under the MONOM umbrella, the compositions features contributions from William Russell, Shehryar Ahmad, Alessandra Denegri, Casimir Geelhoed, Louis McGuire, Jacob Kristin, Shaw Cain Hawkins, Temple Haze, Walter Nied, Alisa Reimer, Soneiro, Fernando Derks, Andy Aquarius, and Romain Azzaro. It conveys humanity's relationship with the four elements, including historic, philosophical, metaphysical, and societal entanglements.