Week 7: Appropriation, Decolonising Sound Information and Archives
Where do we situate our individual and collective Sound Art practices within this debate? What changes do we feel need to be demonstrated within the field of Sound Art? In this session we will pursue an interrogation of past practices and explore examples of decolonising practice.
*Political
- Intervention – responding to new restrictions, authority or a status quo within real-time events, creating a juxtaposition that creates discussion.
- Documentary–providingalternative commentary on events using either real- time footage or material gathered to explore different perspectives on the same scenario.
- Responsive – providing personal responses to external elements to create a dichotomy of simultaneous timelines.
Funny words from trump on beat…I have got no idea. I am a non-political artist. In china it is worth to become a non-political one cause there is no freedom of speech. And the same time, my verb of being an artist would be individualism.
*Personal
- Narrative – a personal story with a clear beginning, middle and end usual involving dramatic turn of events.
- Time-based – evolves in response to events and unfolds in sequence.
- Interpretative – can abstract external events into personal responses and attached meanings/metaphors.
- Self-referential – revisiting work or events from the past.
What are protected characteristics?
It is against the law to discriminate against someone because of:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage and civil partnership
- pregnancy and maternity
- race
- religion or belief
- gender
- sexual orientation
These are called protected characteristics.You are protected under the Equality Act 2010 from these types of discrimination.
- The term ‘intersectionality’ has its roots in Black feminist activism, and was originally coined by American critical legal race scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989. Crenshaw used the term intersectionality to refer to the double discrimination of racism and sexism faced by Black women, critiquing the “single-axis framework that is dominant in antidiscrimination law.. feminist theory and anti-racist politics” for its focus on the experiences of the most privileged members of subordinate groups.[2] Specifically, Crenshaw highlighted legal cases wherein women were required to choose between bringing a claim of racism or sexism and could not say that they had been discriminated against due to the combined effects of race and sex.[The term ‘intersectionality’ has its roots in Black feminist activism, and was originally coined by American critical legal race scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989. Crenshaw used the term intersectionality to refer to the double discrimination of racism and sexism faced by Black women, critiquing the “single-axis framework that is dominant in antidiscrimination law.. feminist theory and anti-racist politics” for its focus on the experiences of the most privileged members of subordinate groups.[2] Specifically, Crenshaw highlighted legal cases wherein women were required to choose between bringing a claim of racism or sexism and could not say that they had been discriminated against due to the combined effects of race and sex.”Intersectionality is a metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and create obstacles that often are not understood among conventional ways of thinking.”
Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound, an AHRC Funded Project, aims to challenge institutional whiteness in experimental sound practice by investigating the creative identities of contemporary black and South Asian composers working in the UK.
Usurp Art, a BAME led arts group, launched its arts space and studios in 2010, the first public art gallery and affordable artist studios in Harrow.We create experiences for culturally and neurodiverse communities, artists, musicians, scientists, poets, filmmakers, activists, writers, performers and designers to come together and create. Open to experimental ideas in all media, we support creatives to collaborate in research and action, and actively encourage a wide range of audiences to participate in the creation of artworks that challenge conformity, prejudice and discrimination.
corey mwamba-
Born and based in Derby, Dr Corey Mwamba’s commitment to jazz and improvised music in Britain and Ireland drives all aspects of his work, whether through making, presenting, promoting, or researching music.
Corey predominantly plays vibraphone; and also plays dulcimer and uses audio processing software. Corey Mwamba is recognised as a highly creative improviser and composer working across a wide range of jazz and contemporary music. Mwamba’s distinctive approach and tone is instantly recognisable in any context: a potent blend of pure sound, highly melodic phrases and ethereal textures; barely whispered chords and ear-piercing robotic screams. Corey won a PRSF/Jerwood Foundation Take Five artist development award in 2007; was short-listed for the Innovation category in the BBC Jazz Awards in 2008; and received nominations for “Rising Star on Vibraphone” the last nine DownBeat annual International Critics’ Polls.
SoN was created in 2009 by Aisha Richards to inform teaching and learning within Art, Design and Communication Higher Education (HE).
Our aim is to enhance the practice, process and experiences of students and HE staff. We do this by placing marginalised communities at the centre of HE and embedding social justice in all aspects of curriculum design, teaching practices and institutional processes.
Sound archives have been described by some scholars as a valuable source of knowledge that “represent the perspectives of the vanquished, the less powerful” (Seeger 2002), that “allow non-literate people to speak for themselves” (Seeger & Chaudhuri 2004), and that might serve to “re-trace” otherwise lost historical knowledge and traditions (Lancefield 1998). Yet how sound archives speak and are heard, for whom and to what effect is never straightforward, especially when their very existence is often bound up in disciplinary practices that cannot be separated from colonial power dynamics. This roundtable will consider the ethical, epistemological and political challenges and opportunities of working with sound archives. Reflecting on their own engagement with sound archives – as ethnomusicologists involved in efforts to repatriate archives to their source communities, and as sound curators and music producers whose work seeks to make archival material available to broader audiences – panellists will also consider if and why these archives matter, and what it might look (or sound) like to “decolonise” sound archives.
As I looked through those sound archives, I found the BBC sound art archives would be the most common one, cause I assumed people were not in the fields of soundart still knew it. They have got a lot of collections on electronic work: How pioneers from the Radiophonic Workshop to Kraftwerk harnessed the power of electricity to create brand new sounds that helped to shape modern music. I have got loads of BBC broadcast which suited my topic so I do believe BBC would be the most famous and popular one for the audience. Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. It is quite old but I find it is very abundant and knowledgeable but the issue of it is it contains too many knowledge. Let’s say if someone’s topic is about noise, I won’t think it would be a really good idea to look at this one. Besides, I found national archives was also an old one, it would be useful to find a lot of relative sounds in documentaries and films. I love the simple design of British library’s archive and the leaf explores, though they were not too complicated, they have got lots of unique and interesting stuffs.
Sound archives related to my topic:
https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/eat-your-own-ears-19th-september-2014
https://www.nts.live/artists/12471-cookie-monster
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/alevelstudies/1948-video.htm
https://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Food/021M-C0821X0204XX-0009V0