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Sonic Liberation Devices began as a thesis and has grown into a collective practice rooted in the belief that sound technologies and musical devices should listen to people, land, and history rather than extract from them. Click here to watch the origin of Sonic Liberation Devices and The P.D.L (abbreviated on here due to censorship).
We are a collective based in Brooklyn, NY that designs community sound technologies. Our sonic framework is rooted in decolonial design, accessibility, open-source education and archival documentation. Through collective creation, we create sound machines as a tool for resistance, connection, and solidarity.
As this work expands, we are committed in building a cooperative business model that is equitable and sustainable, one that we can collectively own and control. Through this journey, we are holding ourselves accountable by showing our process of what it takes to create a new model for collective ownership.
To get the P.D.L into its production phase, these are our immediate needs.
Worker compensation : $55,000
- This total will help our core team have the ability to continue investing our time, effort and energy into sustaining this developmental phase.
- This work includes (but not limited too): Video Editing, Content Creation for Educational Reels, Curriculum Development, Creative Strategy, Graphic Design, Programming, Fundraising, Organizing, Web + UX/UI development, Grant Writing, Labor costs, Event Planning, Research and Consulting.
Infrastructure: $17,000
- Securing a cooperative studio space will give us a headquarters to continue creating and building within community, future workshops (ex: how to build your own synthesizer, S.T.E.M Education, Music Technology, and the ability to properly and safely solder with the right ventilation.
- We also want to use our studio as a place where other working class artists can use our equipment (recording, live streams, music production) at a slide scale cost.
Engineering & Manufacturing: $63,000
- This covers the cost of hardware expenses including electronic components, physical materials, fabrication costs, PCB manufacturing costs, etc. It also includes V2 firmware development and accessibility prototyping.
- This allows us to experiment freely with different designs and iterate on the hardware that we deliver to the community.
Go To Market: $11,000
- Brand and identity development, web development, documentary production, and zine printing
Contingency + Legal Fees: $4,000
- This covers unforeseeable costs such as changes in tariffs and component availability as well as legal fees for cooperative entity structuring and compliance.
SLD believes in an open organization structure that allows us to collaborate with and compensate community members. We look forward to continue making political and socially conscious musical tools that help us envision what the future can look like without labor, land or community exploitation.
We are a new collective starting from the ground up with big dreams, please consider continuing donation even if goal is reached!
Every donation helps us prepare better educational materials, collaborate with more artists, and host more community events.
With gratitude,
Sonic Liberation Devices
Organizer
