Towards an Ethics of Creative Sound

This article examines creative sound practitioners who audibly convey social justice commentary through their use of environmental soundscapes as source material. I discuss how micro-watt radio pioneer Mbanna Kantako, electronic music artist Muqata’a and audio activist Christopher DeLaurenti work with field recordings to produce subversive counter-narratives against news media and state discourses. I outline three specific sound projects as case studies: Kantako’s aural counter-surveillance of police encounters within the predominantly poor and Black neighbourhood of Springfield, Illinois; Muqata’a’s album Inkanakuntu (2018) composed using field recordings of Ramallah, West Bank; and DeLaurenti’s radio piece Fit the Description (2015) that incorporates field recordings of the protests following the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. I argue that composing with soundscapes of contested urban spaces can function as sonic activism that confronts the oppressive soundscapes of systemic racism. The case studies are examined through the following common themes: 1) the use of what I term aural counterpublics to amplify marginalised voices and soundscapes of resistance, and 2) the radical re-appropriation of microphones and oppressive police and military audio technologies as a means of ‘speaking back’ to systems of power. Finally, I suggest how these case studies convey the need for intersectional and decolonised approaches to soundscape studies.

Section: Working Towards More Ethical and Intersectional Soundscape Research Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soundscapes of Resistance: Amplifying social justice activism and aural counterpublics through field recording-based sound practices

Yoganathan

2021

Borrowed for Permanent Use: The Instruments INDIA commissions

Naylor

2019

This article reflects on a number of issues surrounding the appropriation of culturally identifiable sound material for artistic purposes – both overall or broader concerns and those that may arise particularly in conjunction with electroacoustic musical composition. More specifically, we explore questions potentially raised by three electroacoustic compositions recently commissioned by the Instruments INDIA project, a unique cultural partnership between Liverpool Hope University (represented by Dr Manuella Blackburn) and Milapfest (represented by Alok Nayak). Those three compositions were created exclusively with materials from an extensive library of Indian music performances, curated and recorded by Blackburn specifically for Instruments INDIA, and premiered in concert in Liverpool, UK, 20 January 2017. Following the broader discussion of relevant concerns, we briefly review some perspectives offered by the three composers (one of whom is the author), as they relate to cultural appropriation in general, and working with the Instruments INDIA sound library in particular.

Reclaiming and Preserving Traditional Music: Aesthetics, ethics and technology

D’Agostino

2020

Music history is full of examples of composers drawing upon traditional repertoires for their works. Starting from the late nineteenth century in particular, many of them have looked at this specific sound material for several reasons: overcoming the limitations of tonal system, discovering different compositional strategies, finding new inspiration and aesthetics, evoking exoticism. Electronic music is no exception. Since the emergence of sound recording, sonic artists and electronic music composers have experimented with new technologies trying to integrate traditional elements in their works with different results and various purposes. In the present time, the preservation of these traditional elements could represent one of the most crucial goals. In a world characterised by a widespread globalisation, traditional music might be at risk of being neglected or even forgotten, as for local identities and cultures in general. As electronic music composers and sonic artists we should ask ourselves if it is possible to create a link between tradition and innovation, connecting these two apparently opposite realities. Can we safeguard at-risk traditions and at the same time re-present them through contemporary artistic practices and technologies? Is there a way to develop a form of expression that could reach a wide and diverse range of listeners, taking into account recent trends and studies in electronic music while preserving the main distinctive features of the traditional repertoires? The article attempts to answer the above-mentioned questions with the support of a case study: the personal research conducted into the use of traditional music from the southern Italian region of Campania in the scope of electronic music composition.