Stijn Demeulenaere is a sound-artist, a radio maker and searching musician. He holds degrees in sociology, cultural studies and studied radio the Rits school for audiovisual arts. There he graduated with the audio-installation SmallTalk which was later shown at the Kaaitheater (Brussels, Be). Stijn was the curator and producer of the free form radio show ‘Radio Eliot’ on Radio Scorpio. He was a member of the improvisation collective Karen Eliot. Stijn is attracted to sound because of it’s directness, it’s malleability, it’s mystery. He is curently working around the themes of the ruin of listening and the memory of sound / auditive memories. Stijn lives and works in Brussels (BE).

I like to work with sounds that are fragmented, distorted, cut-up I believe these remnants of sounds or fragments of more complete stories are an ideal way into the imagination of people. People need to give meaning to things. And I believe that when confronted with these remnants, people will rely much more on their own imagination to construct a convincing story about the sounds they are hearing. My interest lies with small personal histories. Anecdotes, little stories. I believe that these little stories are an ideal scope to understand people. I am a sociologist. I want to comprehend how people think and act. I’m intrigued by the construction of our own identity, our self. I believe people’s identity is fluid, a continuing reconstruction through a variety of small stories. In zooming in on these experiences, the experience of the work becomes also an experience of the constructing of one’s self. That’s one of the reasons I am interest in field recordings. Off course, I’m crazy about sound, and like sound recordings for their acoustic qualities as well. But I also use field recordings to create a framework of the recognisable and the strange. To draw people in, and slowly cut up established expectations. To create an ever changing mirror for peoples thoughts and representations.