Through Sounds presents Clipping 1: Coming of Age
The Through Sounds project from the Nieuwe Instituut presents the first in a new series of print publications on sound and sonic (sub)cultures. Clipping 1: Coming of Age compiles a wide range of fragments from the project’s extensive collaboration with The Hague’s Rewire festival. It explores music as a ‘connective tissue’ that forms networks and creates meaning. Clipping 1: Coming of Age is launched at the San Serriffe bookshop in Amsterdam on 16 October.
14 October 2025
Nieuwe Instituut’s Through Sounds project presents Clippings, a new series of DIY-style publications that bring together fragments from its ongoing activities. The name refers to the sonic phenomenon of ‘clipping’, whereby audio distorts when signals exceed their limits, as well as to the concept of ‘clippings’ as gathered, cut and rearranged excerpts. Several editions will appear each year, tracing and highlighting developments within Through Sounds as they unfold.
Clipping 1: Coming of Age
For Clipping I: Coming of Age, editors Federica Notari and Natasha Rijkhoff compiled fragments from the events and gatherings held during the ongoing two-year collaboration between the Nieuwe Instituut’s Through Sounds project and the Rewire Festival. This co-curated, two-part programme explored the social and affective infrastructures of sound and music.
The theme of Coming of Age emerged from a desire to explore processes of becoming, not as a single transition, but as an ongoing iterative state. In this context, music acts as a connective tissue, bridging isolated experiences and communal infrastructures to form networks of shared meaning and distribution. Tracks become social objects: they carry stories, spark interactions and transform spaces.
The publication features written contributions by Emily Moore, Federica Notari, Katía Truijen and Natasha Rijkhoff. It is edited by Federica Notari and Natasha Rijkhoff, designed by Catherine Hu and Cleo Tsw, and printed and bound by No Kiss.
Clipping 1: Coming of Age will be available at San Serriffe, NAi Booksellers and other stores from 16 October 2025. A launch event is held at San Serriffe on the same day.
About Through Sounds
Through Sounds is a long-term research project by the Nieuwe Instituut. It explores ‘sonic culture’ in relation to spatial and social design. The places where people listen are connected to various structures – physical, social, political and socio-economic ones. We call these ‘listening infrastructures’. Analysing these infrastructures helps us to understand how and where we access sound, and how we meet and form communities through it.
