Liquid Architecture Presents
Joel Stern + Ira Hadzic
Northcote Social Club (Northcote, VIC)
Wednesday, 22 April 2026 8:00 pm
Li(quid) Listening: Joel Stern, Ira Hadžić
Wed. April 23
NSC, Northcote
Li(quid) Listening: irregular occurrences of well-articulated sonic practices, spanning high and lowbrow forms.
For the first edition of Li(quid) Listening, Liquid Architecture invites Joel Stern and Ira Hadžić to perform their distinct and highly detailed sonic works that investigate music, politics, technology, theory and ideas that sit at the brink of global sound culture
______
Joel Stern is a Naarm/Melbourne-based artist working across experimental music, sound art, and live media performance. His practice explores the politics and poetics of listening, moving through the unstable terrain between the synthetic and the real—where voices are cloned, sounds are repeated and transformed, and meaning fractures under pressure.
Working with modular synthesis, generative systems, and synthetic voice, Stern’s performances unfold as dense, shifting assemblages of noise, text, and rhythm. Fragments of speech emerge and dissolve; patterns loop, stutter, and mutate; signals drift between legibility and abstraction. Drawing on traditions of improvisation, text-sound composition, and electronic music, his work probes how technologies of reproduction—sampling, synthesis, machine listening—reshape perception, memory, and expression.
He has performed extensively in Australia and internationally, both solo and through long-running projects including Machine Listening and Sky Needle. His work has appeared at festivals and venues such as Unsound, Soft Centre, Melbourne Recital Centre, and beyond. From 2013 to 2022, Joel was Artistic Director of Liquid Architecture.
Ira Hadžić is a Berlin-based sound artist with a background in cultural anthropology. Her practice unfolds at the intersections of improvisation, composition, and introspection. Working with gongs, radiophonic forms, field recordings, resonance, minimal sonic gestures, and silence itself, she explores sound as a site of presence and perception. Her projects have been produced by broadcasters such as Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Südwestrundfunk, and have been presented at festivals including Heroines of Sound.
STICKING AROUND FOR A BEV AFTER THE GIG? SHOW YOUR TICKET FOR 10% OFF DRINKS
THIS SHOW IS STRICTLY 18+
Northcote Social Club strives to create a safe space that everyone can enjoy.
Crowd surfing & dangerous behaviour will result in removal from the venue.
Full conditions of entry | Accessibility Info
Can't make the event? Sell your tickets fast and fair through our resale partner Tixel!
Wed. April 23
NSC, Northcote
Li(quid) Listening: irregular occurrences of well-articulated sonic practices, spanning high and lowbrow forms.
For the first edition of Li(quid) Listening, Liquid Architecture invites Joel Stern and Ira Hadžić to perform their distinct and highly detailed sonic works that investigate music, politics, technology, theory and ideas that sit at the brink of global sound culture
______
Joel Stern is a Naarm/Melbourne-based artist working across experimental music, sound art, and live media performance. His practice explores the politics and poetics of listening, moving through the unstable terrain between the synthetic and the real—where voices are cloned, sounds are repeated and transformed, and meaning fractures under pressure.
Working with modular synthesis, generative systems, and synthetic voice, Stern’s performances unfold as dense, shifting assemblages of noise, text, and rhythm. Fragments of speech emerge and dissolve; patterns loop, stutter, and mutate; signals drift between legibility and abstraction. Drawing on traditions of improvisation, text-sound composition, and electronic music, his work probes how technologies of reproduction—sampling, synthesis, machine listening—reshape perception, memory, and expression.
He has performed extensively in Australia and internationally, both solo and through long-running projects including Machine Listening and Sky Needle. His work has appeared at festivals and venues such as Unsound, Soft Centre, Melbourne Recital Centre, and beyond. From 2013 to 2022, Joel was Artistic Director of Liquid Architecture.
Ira Hadžić is a Berlin-based sound artist with a background in cultural anthropology. Her practice unfolds at the intersections of improvisation, composition, and introspection. Working with gongs, radiophonic forms, field recordings, resonance, minimal sonic gestures, and silence itself, she explores sound as a site of presence and perception. Her projects have been produced by broadcasters such as Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Südwestrundfunk, and have been presented at festivals including Heroines of Sound.
STICKING AROUND FOR A BEV AFTER THE GIG? SHOW YOUR TICKET FOR 10% OFF DRINKS
THIS SHOW IS STRICTLY 18+
Northcote Social Club strives to create a safe space that everyone can enjoy.
Crowd surfing & dangerous behaviour will result in removal from the venue.
Full conditions of entry | Accessibility Info
Can't make the event? Sell your tickets fast and fair through our resale partner Tixel!