Why DIY? The rise of queer soundsystems and an introduction to DIY loudspeaker design
Friday, August 28, 2026
11:00 am_11:20 am
Édifice Wilder – Espace danse
85$
Day Pass price, excl. fees & taxesThe lockdowns of the early 2020s destabilized the underground dance music landscape, creating conditions for a new wave of outdoor renegades, unpermitted underground raves that became cultural and organizational training grounds for a generation of trans and queer ravers across North America. Out of that rupture emerges a new wave of DIY sound systems built on community, counterculture and care.
Fait Poms is an Oakland-based sound engineer, manufacturer, and DJ/producer who designs, and builds custom loudspeakers, developing her practice through work with Eris Drew, and Octo Octa’s T4T LUV NRG Soundsystem and Envelope Soundsystem. Her approach centers the amplification of countercultures and marginalized voices, treating sound as a socially engaged practice as much as a technical one.
In this presentation, she traces the rise of queer sound system culture on both coasts, with a particular focus on LUV NRG on the east and Envelope on the west, before closing with an introduction to DIY loudspeaker research, development, and deployment. In the spirit of the practice itself: hands-on, self determined and built from the ground up.
Please note: This activity will be in English only, without live transcription nor translation. During the event, no interpreter for the Deaf will be present.
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