tekhnē

The third issue of tekhnē journal is an outcome of a new thematic strand – Resynthesising the Traditional – initiated by CTM Festival in 2025 together with co-curator Stas Shärifullá. The strand aims to cultivate artistic practice, research, and exchange on how to critically engage with sonic/artistic heritage, folklore, situated knowledge, customs, technologies, and other aspects of “the traditional.” Resynthesis — a processing method in computer music that analyses sounds to extract their fundamental components — is used here as a guiding metaphor to confront conservative views of tradition as something frozen, solidified, and generally untouchable, thus resistant to any transformative practices. Instead it amplifies an understanding of tradition as something continuously mutating in the face of a changing present.

The series of articles featured in this journal edition explore four very different localities and scenes, which despite their differences also highlight a convergence of questions, tensions, and potentials when working with “the traditional.” The artists and communities portrayed within grapple with notions of how to meaningfully connect to aesthetics, knowledge, and histories of traditions in contemporary contexts, while resisting sociopolitical misuses and exoticisation. The forms and practices they (re)connect with are not always so old, which throws light on the ongoing process of forming traditions – into the present – and raises the questions: what makes a tradition a tradition? Who defines it?

Changing technologies are a crucial element of this process, as seen in all of the articles featured here. In connecting past artforms with electronic music tools or sound system technologies, global distribution channels or contemporary compositional techniques, new sonic forms inevitably arise. In engaging with the process of mutating traditions we have to ask: what defines a tradition? How do traditions remain recognisable? When do they change into something completely new?