MANI\VRMES + Ghost Variations (duo) + cyberBanshee (FREE)

Sound Lab returns in 2026 with a loud lineup! Meanjin/Magan-djin’s cyberBanshee joins forces with Lismore’s Ghost Variations (duo) and MANI\VRMES for a night of fierce, performative, and playful sonic exploration.

Free, all welcome, no bookings required.

About cyberBanshee

cyberBanshee aka Han Reardon-Smith(they/them) is a queer-trans/nonbinary settler flutist, electronic musician, improviser, radio producer, community organiser, writer, researcher, and thinker living on the unceded land of the Jagera, Yuggera Ugarapul, and Turrbal Peoples. Their work and thinking are rooted in queer and feminist collaborative and contaminative co-creation with other “holobionts with history” — soundmakers and artmakers, physical and social environments, ecologies, histories, and narratives, exploring the emergent possibilities of making-kin and finding agency within community (soundmaking as kinmaking: musickin). As a musicker, they play with Magan-djin’s radically inclusive symphonic pop collective Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra, and improv and experimentation trio Rogue Three, as well as exploring electronic flute soundings under the moniker cyberBanshee. For the last four years, Han has worked as postdoctoral research associate to Wiradjuri trans-nonbinary Professor Sandy O’Sullivan on their project Saving Lives: Mapping the influence of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ creative artists, and produces the Queer As… podcast emerging from this project. They are one of the community organising thinker-troublemakers behind the Brisbane Free University, its Radical Reading Group, and its 4ZZZ community radio show and podcast Radio Reversal. More of Han’s soundmaking and exploits can be found on their website: hanreardonsmith.com

AboutMANI\VRMES

MANI\VRMES is the dark audio-visual project of Lismore-based artist Nathan Jenkins. Working with sound and audio-reactive imagery, it explores control, collapse, and the persistence of structure within decay. Performing The Last Tongue, MANI\VRMES traces the transformation of language from vessel to emblem. When words no longer carry essence, only allegiance. Drawing from repetition, noise, and transcendence, MANI\VRMES is equal parts hypnotic and repulsive.

About Ghost Variations

Ghost Variations is a temporal autonomous collective of humans living on Bundjalung country. They value DIY processes, the legacies of ‘brutal musick’, anti fascist action, critical creative practices and the pursuit of inclusive communities. We recognise local mythologies and narratives as a thematic jumping-off point to explore social and interpersonal dynamics.

Sound Lab is a new performance series centred on experimental contemporary music, presented within the context of the current exhibitions. This program aims to support the professional development of regional musicians while contributing to a dynamic and diverse sonic landscape of the Northern Rivers. Featuring a mix of local talent alongside artists from Meanjin and beyond, Sound Lab creates opportunities for connection and future collaboration between regional and metropolitan musicians.

When

Location

Lismore Regional Gallery, 11 Rural Street, Lismore, 2480,