Sonic Panoramas

Sonic Panoramas #1
To Be Or Not To Be – While In The Middle The Becoming

Saout Radio, 57’43”, 2017

To be or not to be. Being, becoming. Identity has turned into one of the most politicized and slippery spaces. Poet and philosopher Edouard Glissant recognizes that identity is not a monolith idea. We are, because we are in relation with the other. Our roots are like the ones of a plant or a tree, they make us grow by the meeting of other roots and they meet like crossing hands. Guided by these ideas Saout Radio proposes an one hour immersion into a sonic panorama, exploring the notion of identity through different languages and formats, through different sensibilities and voices.

Written and edited by Anna Raimondo
Jingle & music selection: Chloé Despax
English translation: Jennifer Herth
Design: Stefan Pollak
Artists: Hannibal Andersen (DK), Younes Baba-Ali (MA), Maria Balabas (RO), Youssef Ouchra (MA), Karen Power (IRL), Anna Raimondo (IT), Sama Waly (EG)
Carte Blanche to Radio Papesse (IT).
Curated by Younes Baba-Ali and Anna Raimondo for Saout Radio
Commissioned by Alya Sebti for ifa Gallery Berlin

Younes Baba-Ali: Tout le monde s’appelle Mohamed

1’29’’, 2013

Imagine a sound that could not only be produced but also heard by the listener, a sound he could physically and instinctively react to. Imagine a direct form of interaction based on sound. This is the beginning of this piece, where, in the street, a voice calls “Mohamed”, an exclamation addressed to any unknown male. A frank and brutal call which fills the gap left by the radio medium, where you can only imagine the listener’s feedback.

Hannibal Andersen: In the gap

7’21’’, 2014

In my little seat, in this machine made of metal, I am destined to wait while I am being transported towards my destination. I am forwarded, swiftly, yet my body remains still. My senses unfold and sharpen as time and distance collapse in the gap between A and B. There is no letter between A and B, only a gap. And, in this gap, I discover the subtle harmonics in the humming of the engine. There is nothing between these harmonics either, except the ever-present background noise, demanding my attention.

Anna Raimondo: Untitled (the stranger, the water and what I am)

1’31’’, 2012

“(…) Anna Raimondo is aware that every definition is a limitation, a frontier in itself, something that unites but also separates that can be impermeable. A stranger splashes her at each definition she declares about herself as a woman, as a feminist, as an Italian, as an artist in a metropolis such as London… each water bucket thrown against the performer carries the innocence and violence of games. By the way, being soaking wet, being baptized, are themselves rites of passage, alluding to fluidity, instability, permanent changeability. The action here aims at approaching one of the thorniest issues of the time: if identity has effectively become the battleground of political confrontation, what should we expect when finding that no space for self-definition is any longer available?”

(Text: Maria Iñigo Clavo)

Sama Waly: Monologue

4’16’’, 2014

A bodiless voice speaks in first person, in attempt to define ‘I’ … When a voice becomes ‘nothing’, in this nothingness is reborn as language, it transforms into a breath, and eventually reaches silence; you have witnessed the existentialist crisis of language.

Glissando Papesse

Radio Papesse (IT), 10’, 2016

A journey into Radio Papesse sonic archive in response to Glissant’s approach to relational identity.

Youssef Ouchra: Expiration récurrente

2’33’’, 2013

Breath out, breath out again… Breath out in search of a limit. Fill in the creases.

A bag full of breath. Whisper in the veins. Breath the vacuum in and breath out, and breath out again. A regular exhalation.

Karen Power: Fried rice, curried chips and a diet coke

RTÉ , 10’32’’, 2008

In recent times, I have become very interested in using the sound of words and syllables as musical material. I wish to draw on Trevor Wishart’s view in support of my approach to words and language in the context of this piece. ‘I am going to propose that words never ‘mean’ anything at all. Only the people ‘mean’ and words merely contribute toward signifying peoples’ meanings.

Maria Balabas: Limitele Limbii Mele

28’41’’, 2015

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s text is the starting point for this artistic approach. I wished to research empirical the semantics which this phrase can receive through the simple translation from one language to another. For this, I used the social media and the foreign languages departments of the Romanian Broadcasting Corporation. O used every recording people sent me and the result is this collage in which Wittgenstein means not only translation, but different intonations, multiple recording mediums, an invisible international community connected through the very simple response to the question “How would you translate in your language the limits of my language mean etc etc…”

Sonic Panoramas #3
Sonic Feminisms

Saout Radio, 1h 1’49”, 2017

There are as many sounds as possible ways to be woman.
As many women as possible feminisms.

As many feminisms as possible sounds.

Randa Maroufi: “Close-Up”

8’37”

How a famous painting of western art history from the 19th century is interpreted by Moroccan people of my surrounding today?
“Close-up” is a participative work which invites various people of my network (friends, family, artists,…) to describe or to comment via whatsapp Gustave Courbet’s painting “The origin of the world” .
“Close-up” is especially a way to speak about the « intimate thing » and about its representation.

Randa Maroufi (born 1987, Casablanca, MA) works and lives in Paris (FR). She is a visual artist and film maker graduate from the University in Tetouan, Angers and Le Fresnoy.

Cathy Lane: “Hidden Lives”

1999, 11’09”

“Hidden Lives” (1999) explores ideas of the house as a repository of memories, and of women as the curators of hidden histories. The themes of the domestic, family and the lives and histories of women which I first investigated in Hidden Lives have surfaced repeatedly in my work as have some of the compositional strategies used in the piece, such as composing with the voices of friends and family; the sounding of written text and the use of recorded spoken word as primary material.
“Hidden Lives” was commissioned by the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique and realised in their studio in Bourges, France.

Cathy Lane is a composer, sound artist and academic based in London (UK). Her work uses spoken word, field recordings and archive material to explore aspects of our listening relationship with each other and the multiverse. She is currently focused on how sound relates to the past, our histories, environment and our collective and individual memories from a feminist perspective. She is a Professor of Sound Arts and Director of CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice), University of the Arts London.

Habiba Effat: Q //\\ يا واد يا بت

2017, 18 minutes

Q //\\ يا واد يا بت is a sound piece created using manipulated field recordings of daily, personal interactions that attempts to explore the intersectionality of gender performance, spatial negotiations and class dynamics within public encounters in Cairo.

Habiba Effat (b. 1991 in Cairo, Egypt) is a Cairo-based sound artist and writer. With a BA from the American University in Cairo, she currently works with independent online news outlet Mada Masr.

Myriam Pruvot: “Foudre Chant”

2014, 7’03’’

Sound sequence map which intersects recording and vocal improvisation. It is a single take, the singing is given raw, in a different place each time. Broadcast on laviemanifeste live performance at Festival Monophonic à Bruxelles

Fair Play Medley

8’56’’

Medley, with sound and music by:
Loïse Bulot – Isabelle Stragliati – Méryll Ampe – Maria Cristina Kasem – Anne Laure Pigache – Anne-Julie Rollet – Aline Penitot – Pôm Bouvier b. – Anna Raimondo – Lola Ajima – Myriam Pruvot – Christine Groult – Sophie Lacaze – Soizic Lebrat – Sophie Couronne – Marie Lisel – Julie Mondor – Julia Drouhin – DinahBird – Lucie Bortot – Claudia Wegener – Carole Rieussec – Ocean Viva Silver – Sassy Hertz – Crystal DJ Kwe Favel – Abbigal Muleya – SheWolf

Sonic Panoramas #4
On Riot Cultures and Riot Sounds

We are in Sonic Panoramas and we are speaking of riot cultures and resisting sounds,

we are speaking about silence as a form of active resistance,
we are speaking about non resistance as a form of resistance,
we are speaking about the power of activism and inspiring people.

Thinking about riot cultures, Jacques Attali ’s “Noise: The Political
Economy of Music” came to my mind. He suggests that we should learn to
judge a society on the basis of its noises more than its statistics.
Noise could be institutional and normative but it could also be the
sound of a collective subversion. My attention switched from the concept
of riot cultures to the attempt of embracing the nature of riot sounds.
What could be classified as riot sounds?
Sonic
Panoramas #4 – On Riot Cultures and Riot Sounds explore the
interpretations of riot sounds made by artists from different cultural
horizons.

Sonic Panoramas #4
curated by Anna Raimondo for Saout Radio, commissioned by ifa Galerie Berlin
Written by Anna Raimondo

English translation’s editing: Adriano Giampietro and Marie-Eve Merckx
Communication: Chloé Despax
Design: Stefan Pollak
Artists:
Acoustic Mirror (ES), Daniel Bargach Mitre (VEN/BOL), Cristian Espinoza
(CL/ARG), Hagaiz Eizenberg (ISR), Bárbara González Barrera (CL), 
Brandon LaBelle (DE), Radio Alice (IT), Anna Raimondo (IT), Felipe
Rodríguez Gómez (CO), Griselda Sánchez (MEX), Silence ça urge! (FR)

Radio Alice: Sgombero

Radio Alice was an Italian free radio broadcasting from Bologna at the end of the 1970s. It started transmitting on 9 February 1976 using an ex-military transmitter on a frequency of 100.6 MHz. The station was closed by the carabinieri on 12 March 1977.  Radio Alice’s output covered a myriad of subjects: labor protests, poetry, yoga lessons, political analysis, love declarations, cooking recipes, Jefferson Airplane, Area or Beethoven music. Participants in the station included Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Maurizio Torrealta, Filippo Scòzzari and Paolo Ricci.

Griselda Sánchez: Palabrandar, 2017

Produced by Radio Tsonami

Community radios, with more than fifty years in Latin America, play a key role among the voices that suggest other real and possible worlds. In order to cut them off, the states use carrier signals, interferences and confiscations, thus becoming spaces of dispute in the radio spectrum. Palabrandar is based on soundscapes, identifiers, radio slots and songs from different radios of the continent: Ucamara, Ñu Kaan, Jempoj, La Voz Lenca, Ñomdaa, Insurgente, CRIC, América Profunda, and with audio files of Radio Universidad, Plantón and Venceremos.

Griselda Sánchez lives and works in México.

Hagai Eizenberg: 24 Hours, 2016

On March 24th 2016 there was a shooting incident that soon became another terrible milestone in Israel-Palestine relations called The Hebron shooting incident. A Palestinian assailant stabbed an Israeli soldier, and as a result was shot, wounded and “neutralized”, and afterwards was shot again in the head by an IDF soldier, as he lay wounded on the ground. The second shooting was videotaped and released by the news later that day.

This work takes 24 consecutive news editions of that one single day (news on the radio are broadcast every hour) and attempt to show evolution of the story – beginning with the Palestinian stabbing the soldier, and later during the day after the videotape was released – the story of the Israeli soldier shooting the Palestinian in the head after he was neutralized.

Hagai Eizenberg (born 1978 in Israel) lives and works in Israel.
http://www.hagaizenberg.com/

Felipe Rodríguez Gómez: Plazarte cultural, 2017

On December 26, 2017, the police with the help of the S.M.A.D arbitrarily evicted Plazarte cultural center, violating fundamental rights of the visitors and the resident community. Plazarte cultural center is a space for cultural and community construction, which in the last 9 years has contributed independently to the improvement of the social conditions of the neighborhood and to the artists of the city, activating a living heritage space for the people in Medellín.

Felipe Rodríguez Gómez lives and works in Colombia.
https://carmajournal.org/home/
 

(((o))) Acoustic Mirror: Plazatomada/reverb, 2018

#plazatomada/reverb is a short radio piece that revisits what I believe was a crucial moment during the 2011 #15M occupation movement in Madrid Spain. The work is based on field recordings produced during the heady days of early August 2011, when, in preparation for the Pope’s visit to Madrid, the local authorities decided to evict and cordon off Puerta del Sol, Madrid’s central square and the site of the #AcampadaSol occupation between May and July 2011.

During these days, protesters adhered to the principles of non-violent protest that had been so important for the #15 movement, and, instead of trying to force their way back into the square, proceeded to lay siege to the whole city centre. Three days later, the authorities gave up and the square was taken again.
Against a tradition which represents riots as confrontational, violent, and suspiciously masculine contexts, these acts proved to be a true demonstration of collective intelligence – a rare thing, even back in the contexts of Spain’s #15M movement in the summer of 2011.

(((o))) Acoustic Mirror lives and works in Madrid, ES.
http://acousticmirror.tumblr.c…

Cristian Espinoza: DECEMBER 18´S CACEROLAZO, 18 Dic 2017

The sound documentation was recorded during a warm night  of the summer solstice in the streets of Buenos Aires.  In the middle of a political crisis produced by the structural changes requested by the FMI to the conservative goberment, appears in all the city this local form of protest where people make strident sounds using their kitchen utensils as cooking pots, frying pan, spoons, etc.

Cristian Espinoza (born 1976 in Santiago de Chile (CL)) lives and works in Buenos Aires (ARG) and Santiago (CL).
http://fabulasmecanicas.wordpr…

Anna Raimondo: Untitled (Silences and hesitations), 2012

Silence, over the language and its structure, could question or resist the dualism between genders. These particular silences issued by the personal archive of the artist and her collection of interviews with female musicians, singers and composers conceptually emphasize the official historiography’s hesitations to include women in musical canons. 

Anna Raimondo (born 1981 in Naples) lives in Brussels and works internationally.
www.annaraimondo.com

Bárbara González Barrera: Metrónomo 40.1, 2016

Abstract form metronome 40 (Acción Rizoma). Live action recording.

Bárbara González Barrera lives and works in Santiago de Chile, CL.

Daniel Bargach Mitre: #YOSOYTU, 2016

Rosmery Guarita is the leader of people with disabilities in Bolivia. In 2016 harshly faced the government of Evo Morales. She and several of her companions decided to use their wheelchairs to travel 370km from Cochabamba to La Paz to demand their rights.
I turn her wheelchair into a sound object, it activates when you sit on it.

Daniel Bargach Mitre, born 1977 in Caracas (VEN), lives and works in La Paz, (BOL).
www.danielbargachmitre.com

Brandon LaBelle: Speculations on the lyrical imagination of the resistant, the lazy and the hopeful

Recorded live as part of Club Transmediale, Bethanien, Berlin, 2015. Excerpt.

The trembling voice, the determined gaze, the soft touch, the pouting lip, the pain of freedom, the frog in the throat, the distant horizon, the sudden burst, the gathering crowd, the forgotten words, the unknown outcome, the social energy, the lonely thought, the dispossessed, the longing and the nation, the disciplinary grip, the body on the run, the lost tribe, and the friendship, the flickering light, the moon overhead, the remembrance of things, the quiet hour, the dark alley, the unforgettable sound, the afternoon that drifts, the road to nowhere, and the sign up ahead, the song that made me stop, the whisper, the encounter, the apparatus, the writing on the wall, and the broken drum.

Brandon LaBelle (born 1969 in Memphis, US) lives and works in Berlin, DE.

Collectif ‘Silence ça urge’: Citizen Yoga, 2017

Produced for Utopie Sonore

The permanent state of alert in France could be experienced as a break for the search for your well-being.

We live in a world where it is more and more difficult to escape anxiety and parasitic thoughts.
To help you, the Ministry of Inner Health offers this daily program of citizen relaxation.
Sit on your carpet and let yourself be guided to find your way to relax …

Silence ça urge! is a french collective of radio makers.