In February 2021 Indonesian experimental band Senyawa released their new album Alkisah with 42 labels from various regions of the world. Participating labels were free to determine the format (cassette, LP, CD, digital), album cover art, merchandising, remix tracks, promotional approaches, and the selling price. This project produced 41 original albums, 1 original stem album, dozens of merchandise items, and involved 159 musicians / bands who created remixes / reinterpretations of the album’s tracks.

The main objective of the project is to share ownership and control in order to create inclusive access and explore methods through which music and artworks can be sustainably and socially created. How openly might artists share ownership and control over their work with the public? What kind of tools and economic strategies can accommodate open and networked creative production? What do we need to learn, or un-learn, in order to build strong decentralised music scenes? 

Following a brief introduction by Senyawa’s Rully Shabara, this panel will explore the potentials and challenges of working with widely and openly-networked ideas, practices, regions, and communities, as a group of artists, producers, and community activists that were involved in the Alkisah release dialogue with a cultural researcher.

With FRKTL (artist, Riga/Cairo LV/EG), Ziad Nawfal (Ruptured, Beirut, LB), Morgan Sully (Soydivision/L-KW, Berlin, DE, USA), Nuraini Juliastuti (researcher and writer, NL/ID), Rully Shabara (artist, Senyawa, ID), Sandria Komalasari (Chaos Non Musica, Denpasar, ID).

This online panel was supported by Goethe Institute’s Nusasonic.