NOT A SCHOOL DAY * | 23 AUG 2025

NOT A SCHOOL DAY*

23 AUGust 2025

@ LAPA, 29 CHISWICK ST, BRIXTON, JOHANNESBURG

A peer-to-peer creative workshop featuring classes on songwriting, synthesis, and audio-driven design — hosted by Kyabo Dyakopu, Kayleb Sass, Mike “Bahbah” Ngudle, and Jordan Bareiss — plus an interactive language & sound art experiment hosted by Mbako Moemise.

The day ends with an extra-curricular activity that may or may not involve bragging rights and a custom GUSHER* chess set.

IN partnership with

Class 003 w/KAYLEB SASS: Understanding synthesis—From wave to form 28 Oct 2025 · Gusher is KAYLEB SASS is a forward-thinking musician based in Johannesburg, who creates innovative electronic music as UNCLE and plays guitar with the Lerato Orchestral Collective. His explorations in sound and texture shape the unique perspective he brings to this class.In this class, Kayleb introduces participants to the art and science of sound creation through subtractive synthesis. Using VCV Rack, he breaks down how oscillators, filters, and modulators interact to form the building blocks of electronic music. Drawing from his background in both live instrumentation and modular synthesis, Kayleb encourages students to reimagine their relationship with sound—from consuming it to constructing it. The class invites a hands-on, reflective approach to making music that deepens the bond between thought, feeling, and frequency. Read more →
CLASS 005 W/JORDAN BAREISs & MIKE ‘BAHBAH’ NGUDLE: Particles & Frequencies — Audio-Driven Design in TouchDesigner 28 Oct 2025 · Gusher is JORDAN BAREISS and MIKE ‘BAHBAH’ NGUDLE are multimedia artists whose practices intersect design, sound, and interactivity. In Particles & Frequencies — Audio-Driven Design in TouchDesigner, they explore how gesture, sound, and image can merge into a single responsive system. Participants learned to use MediaPipe for real-time hand tracking, sending motion data to VCV Rack, where gestures generated and shaped sound. That audio then returned to TouchDesigner, animating a point-cloud model of a banana—translating frequency and rhythm into colour, scale, and motion. The session demonstrated how open-source tools can be combined to create custom, audio-reactive environments that blur the lines between instrument and interface, performer and designer. This class invited participants to think of sound not as output, but as a living visual drive. Read more →
CLASS 006 W/MBAKO MOEMISE: LOST IN TRANSLATION — AN INTERACTIVE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AND SONIC EXPERIMENT 28 Oct 2025 · Gusher is MBAKO MOEMISE is a Johannesburg-based curator whose work examines the archival properties of sound and its relationship to memory, geography, and identity. Their research engages African methodologies of archiving through listening, questioning how sound might preserve what written systems overlook.In Lost in Translation — An Interactive Study of Language and Sonic Experiment, participants engaged in a live, collaborative exercise where a single phrase was passed and translated from person to person, shifting in tone, meaning, and rhythm. The evolving fragments were recorded and assembled into a sound collage — a living archive of voices and mistranslations. Blending psycho-geography, Afro-futurism, and sound art, the class explored language as vibration, archive, and social fabric, asking how sound itself can hold memory, miscommunication, and care. Read more →