Talk
Imaginal Machines: A Conversation with Riar Rizaldi & Luigi Monteanni
This dialogue brings together Indonesian and Italian experts on film, music, industrialization, and how these cultural practices reflect broader histories of labour and social change.
16.09.2026
About the Speaker
Riar Rizaldi works as an artist and filmmaker. His practice explores the relationships between science, technology, labour and nature, alongside competing worldviews, genre cinema, and the possibilities of theoretical fiction.
His works have been shown at various international film festivals (including Berlinale, Locarno, IFFR, FID Marseille, Viennale, BFI London, Cinema du Reel, Vancouver, etc.) as well as Singapore Biennale (2025), Thailand Biennale (2025), Museum of Modern Art New York (2024), Whitney Biennial (2024), Taipei Biennial (2023), Istanbul Biennial (2022 & 2025), Venice Architecture Biennale (2021), Biennale Jogja (2021), Centre Pompidou Paris (2021), National Gallery of Indonesia (2019), and other venues and institutions.
Recent solo exhibitions and focus programmes have been presented at Almanac, Turin, Italy (2025); Gasworks, London, United Kingdom (2024); the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, United Kingdom (2024); Z33 - House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt, Belgium (2024); the Centre de la Photographie Genève (2023); and Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto, Portugal (2023), among others.
About the Speaker
Luigi Monteanni is a sound researcher and artist interested in the relationships between underground music communities, regional traditions, folklore and recording practices. He is completing a PhD in Ethnomusicology at SOAS, analysing the indigenisation of extreme metal in Bandung, Indonesia, through a theory of sonic models, ecologies and ecosystems. He is also an active member of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology and has been a visiting researcher at ISBI Bandung and CRiSAP London.
As a musician, he co-founded the duo Babau and the label Artetetra in 2014. Both projects explore the musical possibilities of digital folklore and internet exoticism in late globalisation under the tongue-in-cheek term “fifth world music.” He has performed and presented installations and lectures at festivals and institutions including Terraforma, UH Fest, Saturnalia, Museo Madre, MK&G Hamburg, Triennale Museum and Club to Club, and has collaborated with artists such as Tarawangsawelas, Heith and Lord Spikeheart. His chapters and articles have been published by, among others, Norient, Zer0 Books, Spiral House, CTM Magazine, Routledge and the University of Montreal.
