Traces and Dirty Listening. Lecture by Jonathan Castro Alejos

Traces and Dirty Listening is a lecture on my visual and sonic practice, grounded in ongoing research into alternative/experimental ways of approaching the margin. This margin is not merely a boundary, but a charged threshold: a space beyond the circuits of urban productivity, where denial, noise, and natural forces accumulate and interact.

Working with traces, fragments, and the so-called undesirable elements of urban space becomes a method for constructing and archiving new perceptual and material narratives. This research foregrounds the unfinished and the unstable — elements through which future possibilities emerge not as smooth visions, but as layered, contested, and uneven realities.

By focusing on these overlooked dynamics, my research attempts a critical way of sensing the built environment and our relation with spaces – tracing shifting textures of time, revealing hidden layers of time, and uncovering fragments through which new visual and spatial futures may quietly emerge.

The lecture will be held in English.

Jonathan Castro Alejos is a graphic designer and multidisciplinary artist based in Rotterdam who works with sound, video, installation, and performance. His explorative practice oscillates between the real and the fictitious, assembling and reassembling collected raw materials embedded with different qualities and identities to reconstruct them into surfaces, objects, visual languages, and soundscapes.

Future Fragments
"The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed." This frequently quoted remark by William Gibson, emphasizing the uneven yet undetermined nature of what we call the future, serves as the inspiration for this series of events on culture and technology. It offers a space for open discussions, lectures, and screenings, through which we explore how contemporary technology is transforming our culture, daily lives, and ways of thinking about what lies ahead.

Future Fragments is a dynamic platform for reflecting on the future as it unfolds around us—fragmented, at an uneven pace, and within diverse local contexts. The series is aimed at anyone interested in the present and the future—researchers, creators, practitioners, and those who seek a deeper understanding of the changes occurring at the intersection of technology and culture.