Buenos Aires: Relations Condensed in Practice

Podcast

Episode 13 of the TIMEZONES podcast series, co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut. This episode examines how practices among friends help build networks to strengthen the explorations and works of artists while collectively building survival skills. The backdrop for this episode is the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, a very rich and complex city where mainstream spaces, venues, and cultural centers are playing a less than helpful role in the artistic scenes. It’s all about profit and not about culture, as producer Ailín Grad aka Aylu explains.

Notes from the Producer

Nevertheless, there are public cultural centers and public spaces in Buenos Aires that welcome and finance artistic practices. Yet self-created rules are always necessary, and small communities that connect with each other are essential. This city, like any big city in Latin America, is characterized by its mix of cultures, which is what fuels our creativity. We create with what we have, overcoming difficulties, and we marvel at every little thing that sparks inspiration. That’s how it feels here, where we insist on staying.

There’s a deeply rooted idea that self-care and individual growth is the only way to achieving happiness, stability, and success. In this TIMEZONES episode, we talk about how we connect with other people despite being bombarded with this premise.

#Being dependent on other people is not the same as being weak. We must acknowledge the fact that building our own networks to support our own rules is the most important thing we can invest our time and resources in right now. Do-it-yourself can be a utopia, but it can also be a misleading term when people simply cannot do it themselves. During the production of this episode, I came to realize that we support each other in our limitations and not just in our competences. That way, we not only amplify but also protect each other.

Credits

A podcast by Ailín Grad aka Aylu

Co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut

Featuring: Elsa Justel, Miguel Garutti, Cecilia Castro, Rosa Nolly Bustos, Victoria Barca Opening piece by Aylu and AGF (feat. Constanza Castagnet) with a poem by AGF Includes a bonus talk, moderated and produced by Lola Granillo

Artistic Editor: Suvani Suri
Project Management: Hannes Liechti
Video Trailer: Emma Nzioka
Jingle Voiceover: Nana Akosua Hanson
Jingle Mix: Daniel Jakob
Mastering: Adi Flück, Centraldubs
Artwork: Šejma Fere

→ Full transcript of episode 13

Listen on

→ Listen to further TIMEZONES episodes

Featured Artists

Elsa Justel, born in 1944, is a legendary electroacoustic composer. She has been composing acousmatic music for a long time and is also a prolific writer and thinker in this area. She lives in Mar del Plata, a city on the coast of Buenos Aires. Read a more detailed bio here and follow her on SoundCloud.

Miguel Garutti graduated in arts from the University of Buenos Aires where he currently works on his doctoral thesis on the history of electroacoustic music in Argentina in the 1970s. He studied composition and technology at the National University of Quilmes and the University of São Paulo (Brazil). He works on the preservation of audio tapes at the LIPM laboratory at the Recoleta Cultural Center and with Cecilia Castro (see below) at the UNQ Music and Sound Art Archive. Explore one of his audiovisual works on Vimeo and follow him on Instagram or Facebook.

Cecilia Castro is a composer of electroacoustic and acoustic music. She is a professor of electronic art at Tres de Febrero National University and runs the Fernando von Reichenbach Archive. This archive holds the material of Di Tella, one of the studios Miguel Garutti mentions in the podcast. Follow Cecilia Castro on her website, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram.

Rosa Nolly Bustos is a composer, saxophonist, and sound designer. She participates in a wide aesthetic range between concert, experimental, and contemporary jazz as well as indie music. She produces musical arrangements and sound designs in collaboration with artists from other disciplines such as film, multimedia, and performing arts. She held artistic residencies in Latin America and Europe. Her works explore the hybridization of bodies and materialities, the organic and the political. Follow her on SoundCloud, Facebook, or Instagram.

Victoria Barca aka Vic Bang produces rhythmic and textured compositions using sample processing and virtual synthesizers. Her work captures the micro-sounds of the world, transforming them into unique sound sculptures. She has released records on labels such as Moon Glyph, Kit Records, and Abyss and has played live at numerous festivals and cultural venues in the Buenos Aires experimental music scene. Follow her on Facebook or Instagram.

Bonus Talk

Maybe a Method
moderated and produced by Lola Granillo

In the end, Buenos Aires is a port on the banks of a river.

When I met with Aylu, producer of TIMEZONES Buenos Aires, and contributor Cecilia Castro to record this bonus talk, there arose the memory of a historical event that changed our lives and our way of doing things as well as our sound. We currently experience a moment of increasing collective action and of the collective as a way of being and thinking in the face of the constant economic crisis in the region. In this bonus track, we talk about our common ghosts and fantasies as a population with a fairly large proportion of migrants and as people who live in a port city, with almost no other connection to the river than the supposed possibility of leaving in search of more resources, weighed against the importance of friendship and community.

Lola Granillo (born in La Rioja, Argentina, in 1983) is a multidisciplinary artist. She began her artistic career with the creation of an FM radio show featuring debates and encounters. As a composer, she has released two albums with songs. She also hosts a podcast that reflects on the consumption of tobacco and alcohol in the context of art and dissent. Listen to her podcast or her radio show and follow her on Bandcamp or Instagram.

Playlists

1. A selection of eclectic, experimental, electroacoustic music from Buenos Aires, Argentina. All these compositions explore the plasticity of sound. They take us by the ear and into hallucinations that are as beautiful as they are chaotic, noisy, or delirious. To be released on Spotify December 7, 2022.

Curated by Vic Bang

2. A little collection of pieces by all the artists interviewed in this episode. Most of the tracks appear as part of the music and sound design. There’s a mix of recent and older works, from electronic to acoustic and processed instruments. A small glimpse into Buenos Aires’ electroacoustic and experimental music scene.

Curated by Ailín Grad aka Aylu

Tracklist

The following tracks are part of the podcast mix. Listed in order of appearance.

Aylu and AGF feat. Constanza Castagnet: «strike/huelga/streik/lakko!»
Elsa Justel: «Yegl»
Aylu: «Whistle»
Miguel Garutti: «Flex»
Aylu: «Arancione»
Miguel Garutti: «Diamante con pelos»
Aylu: «Y_Y»
Cecilia Castro: «12 Dedos»
Cecilia Castro and Astrosuka: «Roma III»
Cecilia Castro: «Para Eliza»
Cecilia Castro: «Worm»
Cecilia Castro: «Para Eliza»
Rosa Nolly Bustos: «Polar»
María Elena Walsh: «Canción especial introduction (Electroacoustic Version by Rosa Nolly Bustos and Ailín Grad)»
Vic Bang: «Orurro»
Vic Bang: «Arp»
Aylu: «Cristal I»
La Vibrazona: «Vivo en el campo»
Vic Bang: «Orurro»
Vic Bang: «Lira macho»
María Elena Wals: «Canción especial introduction (Electroacoustic Version by Rosa Nolly Bustos and Ailín Grad)»
Cecilia Castro: «Worm»
Elsa Justel: «Yegl»

Trailer

By Emma Nzioka

The TIMEZONES podcast series plunges into the world of artists and their practices, asking: what does living and working in culture and the arts involve in different countries, cities, and contexts today? The artists’ thoughts on their moods, their social, political, and intellectual realities and their philosophies (of life) have been worked up into experimental audio collages.

The podcasts run the gamut of formats and content, from straight journalism to experimental and documentary approaches, ethnography and fiction, sound art, and improvisation. The TIMEZONES series endeavours to create new artistic forms of storytelling, listening and exchange across the boundaries of geography, time zones, genres, and practices.

The TIMEZONES podcast series is co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut.

Biography

Ailín Grad aka Aylu designs audio spaces from Buenos Aires and is mostly known for potent psychotropic juke and footwork experiments. Aylu takes ordinary objects and sounds and pieces them together into electro-acoustic systems: slender gears feathering in complex geometries. Aylu’s works are a small system of electroacoustic pieces. Gears, geometries, instruments, and designs of a fuzzy and unexpected space. She tries to explore different materials and their textures, seeking to resignify sounds that belong to our daily listening and to the soundscapes surrounding us.

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Published on November 24, 2022

Last updated on October 12, 2023

Topics

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Ghost City, Tear Gas, Novel Rhythm, Nowhere to Go

Sound Piece

by Maria Frederika Malmström,

Desert Kites

By thinking about and with sound, we experience the world through embodied practices. In her mesmerizing sonic essay based on field recordings in a protest-struck Cairo, our contributor asks: How are bodies, things, and cityscapes interconnected?

Ting, ting, ting, sonic bodies, beep, beep, beep… please wait while your transaction… Doot, doot, doot. Drrrrrrrrrrrrr. And the government is always NAGGING, NAGGing, NAgging. And you can even tell by their body language that they carry ahhh burden. Allaaah akbaaar… Horns, tuk-tuks, motorists. Ting, damtatamdam. Clinking of the gas man’s tools. Tatata. Beware. Paap, pu-pu-boom. Shootings. Do not care. Fuckfuckfuck, fuckin’ widda real. Aaahh, fuckin’ widda real. Tell me how you feel when you fuckin’ widda real? Ahh. Daddidadidaaadidaaa. Big brother. Swish, thith. Sky. Is. Enemy. Helicopter birds. Loud. Mahraganat. Sweating. Vibrational bodies. Forgetting. No. Yes. Dadoom. Stella. Dissonance. Escaping. Whirling. Dadooom. Blade-passing frequency. Sound of silence. Ousted. Curfew. Ghost city. Flight. Tear gas. Choking pain. Pull of suspicion. He took the bullet meant for me. Guilt. Shame on you. Massacre. Shootings. Sirens. Low-flying aircrafts. Novel rhythm. Nowhere to go. Metallic birds again, again, again. Anxiety-ridden bodies. Touched bodies. Crowded Cairo. Loud voice. SILENCE. Reorientation. Alienation. Sonic disciplining. Absence of sound. Loss of navigation. Vicious circles of uncertainty. Aural communication. Protesters. No. Irhal. Sonic enemy of silence. DADOOM. Poom, sthiiiiik, dadooom. Reverbation. Ahmed. Mohamad. Karim. Ibrahim. Abed. Hassan. Mahmood. Sherif. Said. Ali. Whispering. Names of prisoners. Sounds of the living dead. Moving voices. Aaaahaoh. Streets are talking to me. Ghost bodies. Desire to disappear in order not to disappear. Dadoom, schh, aeeehhh, hchmm, dadadadaaaa. Waiting. Tataatick, tichk, da, chch, krchkrch. Revolution of the poor is coming. dANG, DANG. Never. Forget. Chchhhhh. Tututut. Frequency. Amplitude. Beep, beep, beep… please wait while your transaction… Doot, doot, doot. Drrrrrrrrrrrrr. Fuckfuckfuck, fuckin’ widda real.

I am triggered by the vast potential of worlds that are still to be unlocked, attempting to spin new webs of thought spanning the globe. This specific piece takes us through the Cairo streets, where we hear sounds of various human actors, but also non-living actors. This phenomenon unlocks unfamiliar worlds and invites the listener to listen from sonic fragments, matter, spaces, and places since 2013 and onward. Consciously listening, attending to sounds is a political tactic, because listening alters the body of the listener (Labelle 2018). It is a method for transmission of sound knowledge and for novel ways of being in the world of self and others. Sound knowledge initiates a process of social change, even if we must linger in spaces of discomfort, in both the pain and praise of others (Kapchan 2016).

Thinking and speculating with sounds instead of about sounds produces new knowledge about the world and our understanding about us being-in-the-world, body-subjects, to use Merleau-Ponty’s (1968) terms, far beyond the Cartesian logic (dualist model of body and mind). We experience the world through embodied practices rather than through cognitive and linguistic models. By focusing on only our hearing, we learn to trust ourselves and unknown others. It instructs us to sonically sense the story of the aftermath of the «failed revolution» in Egypt and what happened to it after the disaster in 2013, as well as to experience matter, places, and spaces through the politics of the ear in relation to an imagined or rejected nation. We experience the world through embodied practices rather than through cognitive and linguistic models.

The sonic affects us, touches us, moves through our bodies and alters our emotions, vibration and rhythm. It allows us to reflect upon ways that the materiality of sound, the emotions connected to the sonic, the censorship of sound, or the propaganda with sound, help us understand (counter-) power, claims to authenticity, authority, resistance, and deviance. Our new sonic emotional knowledge opens common experiences and potential paths for change. By acknowledging sound, whose vibrations are material and can be measured as infrastructures, we are able to explore vibrations as sonic infrastructures, as tools of techno-politics.1

Sound Piece

My intention in the sound essay Affective Sonic Fragments in Sisi’s Egypt is to invite you to use several senses at the same time and to think with sound instead of about sound. I want to touch the relationally porous skin of your body and to move your sonic body through aural communication and let you sonically understand specific forces of sound. How do sonic vibrations mediate consciousness? How does sound shape/constrain the actions of individuals/groups? How can sound tell us more about being human and about imagination? How are bodies, things, and cityscapes interconnected? How do they produce sensations in relation to intense and slow times (temporality and frequency)? How will collective bodies of trauma, like the sonic bodies of Cairenes, but also in relation to the global body, navigate? How will they cross the street into the unknown future as one relational collective body? Is it possible to find stillness in the movement? The sonic body can act, tell a larger story, be evidence and be de/re-formed. The loud and silent body may also signify contradictions, since it is capable of both reaffirming and transforming forms of domination. By using the senses instead of words alone, one may be able to grasp what is beyond language in language.

1. Sonic infrastructures encompassing both audible spaces and matter and by new collective sound knowledge we are able to creates a dialogue with contemporary global struggles, even if autocratic regimes consciously produce and perform both concrete and symbolic sonic violence, where changes of rhythm and frequency are key.

List of References

Labelle, Brandon. 2018. Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resistance. London: Goldsmiths.

Merlau-Ponty, Maurice. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Kapchan, Deborah. 2017. «Listening Acts: Witnessing the Pain (and Praise) of Others». In Theorizing Sound Writing, edited by Deborah Kapchan. 277–93. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

The sound piece intimately communicates with Malmström’s book «The Streets Are Talking to Me: Affective Fragments in Sisi’s Egypt». It is co-produced with Desert Kites combines field recordings from multiple fieldworks in Cairo between 2012 and 2018 with music by Desert Kites, along with the Egyptian musician Mr Kordy’s (with his permission) composition Fuckin’ Widda Real (video directed by Raed Al Murish).

«Sonic Worlding» is a monthly Norient column. It invites writers and artists from all over the world to to think and speculate with and not only about music. Where most music writing treats music as something that can be categorised and placed in pre-determined boxes (personality cults, end-of-year lists, genres, origins, styles), «Sonic Worlding» is interested in the vast potential of rhythms, ideas, and worlds that are still to be unlocked, attempting to spin new webs of thought spanning the globe. Edited & curated by Norient editor Philipp Rhensius.

Biography

Maria Frederika Malmström is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology and Research Fellow at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London. She is also a Visiting Research Scholar in the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, Graduate Center, CUNY, New York City. Follow her on LinkedIn.

Biography

Desert Kites is a New York-based composer and musician. Originally from Glasgow, Scotland, their debut album «This Blazing World» will be released in 2023.

Published on December 20, 2022

Last updated on April 09, 2024

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Aragalaya: Inside the People’s Struggle in Colombo by Isuru Kumarasinghe, Devana Senanayake

Aragalaya: Inside the People’s Struggle in Colombo

Podcast

by Isuru Kumarasinghe,

Devana Senanayake

Episode 12 of the TIMEZONES podcast series, co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut. This episode explores the creation of art during the political struggle that has shaped Sri Lanka and its capital Colombo since the start of 2022. Sound artist Isuru Kumarasinghe and journalist Devana Senanayake share the perspective of artists and musicians who either lived permanently or temporarily around the Gota Go Gama camp, one of the central sites of the protest.

The Aragalaya Struggle: A Very Brief Introduction

Since the start of 2022, Sri Lanka has been experiencing an economic crisis sparked by a lack of fuel and gas, electricity cuts, skyrocketing prices of food staples, and shortages of medicine. As the conditions worsened, quiet candle-lit vigils rose up around the country and they soon exploded into a series of larger, roadside protests.

In April 2022, a protest outside the president’s house in Mirihana, one of Colombo’s suburbs, led to the arrest of protestors, a declaration of a «state of emergency», and a social media ban. In response, protests proliferated throughout the country.

Protestors had multiple demands but the main one asked for the resignation of the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Chants that included the president’s nickname, Gota, such as «Go Home Gota», could be heard at the protests. People set up a camp that included medical tents, ambulances, food, a library, and an art center – all for free – in Colombo’s oceanside urban park, Galle Face Green. They named this site Gota Go Gama (Gota Go Village). During the protests, several other protest villages popped up in urban areas around the country.

Despite an attack on May 9, 2022 by a pro-state mob, arrest of protestors, and consistent disinformation, protestors achieved many things – the resignation of several Rajapaksa family members from the Cabinet, the resignation of prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, and even the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa on July 9. After an early morning attack by police and the army on July 21, protestors received an order to leave Gota Go Gama on August 12. All of them followed this order and vacated the premises.

For further background information around the protests scroll down and check links.

Credits

A podcast by Isuru Kumarasinghe and Devana Senanayake

Co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut

Featuring: King Ratnam, Anu Madhubhashinie, Dinupa Kodagoda, Ajith Kumarasiri, and Namini Panchala

Artistic Editor: Abhishek Matur
Project Management: Hannes Liechti
Video Trailer: Emma Nzioka
Jingle Voiceover: Nana Akosua Hanson
Jingle Mix: Daniel Jakob
Mastering: Adi Flück, Centraldubs
Artwork: Šejma Fere
Photography: Aaqill Nooramith

→ Full transcript of episode 12

Listen on

→ Listen to further TIMEZONES episodes

Musician and performer Dinupa Kodagoda speaking about her practice at the recording for the TIMEZONES podcast (photo: Devana Senanayake).

Featured Artists

King Ratnam is a director, actor, and musician. Currently he helps the Artists of the People’s Movement host marches as part of the people’s protests. Follow him on Twitter.

Anu Madhubhashinie is a vocalist, composer, and dancer. She has been trained in classical and Eastern practices in her music and dance. She was camping on-site at «Gota Go Gama». Follow her on Facebook or YouTube.

Dinupa Kodagoda is a vocalist, dancer, and an actress. She and her husband compose music about social issues related to human relationships and social justice. She has participated in several artists’ marches and contributed to the people’s protests this year. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Spotify.

Ajith Kumarasiri has been a key figure in modern alternative music since the 1980s in Sri Lanka. He is committed to issues of social justice and human emancipation. Ajith engages with music in terms of a broader concept of sound as well as noise. Follow him on Youtube or Facebook.

Namini Panchala is a singer-songwriter, composer, and a film music director. She is committed to exploring activism through music, including with regards to women’s rights, animal rights, militarization, and equality. Follow her on Facebook or YouTube.

Bonus Talk

A Deeper Look into the Aragalaya (Struggle)
moderated by Janik Sittampalam, produced by Zainamb Wahid

Aragalaya: Inside the People’s Struggle in Colombo by Isuru Kumarasinghe, Devana Senanayake

In this bonus episode, we speak to Devana Senanayake and Isuru Kumarasinghe, the producers of the Colombo TIMEZONES episode on the protest music of the Aragalaya. The economic and political crisis has affected us all here in Sri Lanka, and we talk about living as artists during this tumultuous time. In these past few months, we have witnessed a cultural revolution in addition to the political one, and Devana and Isuru reflect on the process of documenting and capturing the spirit of the protest. We compare this modern movement to the radical movements of Sri Lanka’s past, and how the work we do today might shape how people think of this time in the years to come.

Janik Sittampalam is a writer and journalist based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He mainly writes about history, culture, and philosophy, seeking the deeper connections lurking beneath the everyday. He also enjoys acting, both on and off stage.

Zainamb Wahid has studied at the SAE (School of Audio Engineering) Institute in Singapore. She has several years of experience as a radio producer and audio engineer, and has been employed in YES 101 and Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC). She is also a musician in the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka and the Gustav Mahler Society, and conducts violin and piano lessons privately. Follow her on Facebook.

Playlist

Explore a playlist of artists from Colombo and their current releases. A mix of original Sri Lankan popular and underground tracks both by Sinhala and Tamil artists.

Curated by King Ratnam

Trailer

By Emma Nzioka

The TIMEZONES podcast series plunges into the world of artists and their practices, asking: what does living and working in culture and the arts involve in different countries, cities, and contexts today? The artists’ thoughts on their moods, their social, political, and intellectual realities and their philosophies (of life) have been worked up into experimental audio collages.

The podcasts run the gamut of formats and content, from straight journalism to experimental and documentary approaches, ethnography and fiction, sound art, and improvisation. The TIMEZONES series endeavours to create new artistic forms of storytelling, listening and exchange across the boundaries of geography, time zones, genres, and practices.

The TIMEZONES podcast series is co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut.

This episode is supported by:

Biography

Isuru Kumarasinghe is a musician and sound artist from Sri Lanka and is based in Colombo. Through a listening practice his work focuses on the experience of sound perception and sound movements. He is a self-taught artist, who creates tools to transmit philosophies of listening, affect, and the relationship to the body into sound producing. He mainly works with electro-acoustic music improvisation, field recordings, as well as sound installations and performance. Kumarasinghe collaborates extensively with artists in the fields of music, dance, theater, and film, and is a co-founder of the Musicmatters collective in Colombo. He regularly produces music records and is currently co-founding the new producing studio Earscapes in Colombo. Facebook.

Biography

Devana Senanayake is a researcher, journalist, and producer who has experience in the U.K., Australia, and Sri Lanka. She has bylines in The Washington Post, Aljazeera, The Guardian, and Foreign Policy. Her sound art has been published in Voiceworks, The Lifted Brow, and Interior Journal. Follow her on X, and on her Website.