About

Noise Traffic is a platform producing interdisciplinary art and research projects in Europe.

“We know they are noises in the first place because they exist where they shouldn’t or they don’t make sense when they should. But here too in knowing this we already know too much for noise to exist. But noise does indeed exist, and trying to define it in a unifying manner across the range of contexts will only invite noise on itself. Suppressing noise only contributes to its tenacity and detracts from investigating the complex means through which noise itself is suppressed, while celebrating noise easily becomes a tactic within the suppression of something else”

– Douglas Kahn

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Noise Traffic (NOT) is a creative initiative for art, research, exhibitions, sound art, and performance. Through its activities NOT aims to foster a creative methodology, map out the performativity of social systems, and examine the role of “noise” as a critical necessity in today’s contemporary society. It seeks to address the social realities and amplify voices that often remained unheard.

Taking global conflict and the postwar abundance of affluence following WWII as its reference point, factors that contributed to the rise of “noise” in the avant-garde and were directly linked to the sounds of military combat, industrialism, and public demonstration in the 1950s, NOT draws from history, critically reflects, traces and addresses the structures that continue to organise social reality, through creative means.

Through its activities, NOT expands the 1970s avant-gardists’ tradition who dreamed of freedom, collectivism, and community, as a means to become a site of reflection, a living archive where one can find the reality which exists in sites of ontological and performative nature.

Noise Traffic was founded in 2023 by Nicolina Stylianou and initiated a cultural exchange between Cyprus and Finland. It emerged as a counterculture underground do-it-yourself event held on 14 January 2023 at Vapaan Taiteen Tila in Helsinki held in collaboration with Station of Commons, and was supported by the Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture and Vapaan Taiteen Tila. 

2025 N.O.T Team
Nicolina Stylianou | Founder, Producer, Curator
Olga Spyropoulou | Catalysti ry representative
Chih-Tung Lin | communication and social media
Stella Tähtinen & Emīlija Rozenšteina | Cello Fest collaboration
Konstantinos Kostas | PR and outreach
Paloma Bautista | production assistance, Catalysti ry
niko wearden | production assistance
Gesa Piper | TIAN coordination
Rong-Ci Zhang | artist interviews and podcasts, TIAN
Jonathan Mayhew | technical assistance
Karolina Korvuo | invigilation and hospitality, Vapaan Taiteen Tila
Aman Askarizad | photographer, Catalysti ry