David Wallraf

David Wallraf (no pronouns or they/them) is a nonbinary noise artist and theorist from Hamburg. In their audio works they explore the acoustics of the uncanny: Field recordings, electromagnetic waves and obsolete audio technology are woven into soundtracks for the nightmare of 'capitalist realism'. Since 2013 they released about 80 solo works and collaborations. In February 2025, the tape album Crudeltá Necessaria was released on Karlrecords. They regularly collaborate with artists from the international experimental music scene and noise underground, most recently with the Korean noise artist Jena Jang. An ongoing interest is the live scoring of surrealist silent films, including works by Luis Buñuel, Maya Deren and Jean Genet.

David's dissertation on noise, the book Grenzen des Hörens - Noise und die Akustik des Politischen (Limits of Hearing - Noise and the Acoustics of the Political) has been published in German, an English translation is in process. From 2016 to 2019 they organized the international festival Noisexistance at Schwankhalle Bremen and Kampnagel in Hamburg, featuring (among others) concerts by Wolf Eyes, Moor Mother and Peter Brötzmann and talks by Paul Hegarty, Marie Thompson and Cecile Malaspina. They were a lecturer at the Listening Biennial 2023 in South East Asia, with workshops and talks at University of the Philippines, Silpakorn University in Bangkok and Multimedia University in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

https://davidwallraf.com/

https://davidwallraf.bandcamp.com/

https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-5516-2/grenzen-des-hoerens/

David Wallraf (no pronouns) is a non-binary noise artist from Hamburg and researches the theory and aesthetic practice of noise. The audio works that emerge from this process explore the acoustics of the uncanny: Field recordings, electromagnetic waves and obsolete audio technology are woven into soundtracks for the nightmare of 'capitalist realism'. These works are released internationally (approx. 80 recordings since 2013). In February 2025, the album Crudelta Necessaria was released on the Berlin label Karlrecords.

In addition to concerts and various collaborations (currently with the Korean noise artist Jena Jang), David performs live soundtracks to surrealist silent films. Following works on Luis Buñuel, Maya Deren and Jean Genet, a soundtrack to Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin is on the program for 2025. From 2016 to 2019, David curated the international festival congress Noisexistance at Schwankhalle Bremen and Kulturfabrik Kampnagel, which featured lectures by Cecile Malaspina, Marie Thompson and Paul Hegarty, as well as concerts by Peter Brötzmann, Wolf Eyes, Moor Mother and others.