Human language often imitates sounds from beyond human worlds to make up words whose sound suggests the sense – crash, splash, sizzle, drizzle, clap, zap, bump, boing, and so on – but these are often appropriated to mean other things in acts of human commerce. The sonic boom of thunder, for instance, can also be verbally construed as a boom for the economic sector.

What is the sound of creativity? The crackling in the furnace, rap trap rap on a loom, swishing objects across the floor, the clanks of nation-building, or the deafening boom of nuclear fission. This issue harmonises the meditative and the entropic within the auditory spectrum through diverse creative practices currently being heard.

Omer Arbel experiments with fusing incompatible materials to build spontaneous forms; the photobook by Kenya Hara, ‘Cleaning’, highlights the many motions and tools employed in its choreography; the hand-loomed ‘Ikat’ patterns reveal a map of complex identities in ‘Patta-Bandha’; and Ruth De Jong reflects on recreating the boom that changed humanity forever in ‘Oppenheimer’.

In a world full of sounds, the creative realm has consistently devised ways of tuning the cacophony into music for the many. The context of your pitch is what matters. Let’s start with making the right noise, shall we?