The performance artist Ramia Beladel, Moulay Bouchta, July 2017 (photo: Gilles Aubry).

A Wasted Breath Inside a Balloon

Sound Piece

This sound piece results from collaboration between the artists Ramia Beladel and Gilles Aubry in Moulay Bouchta l’Khmar, a village in the northern part of Morocco. Informed by Beladel’s long term research on popular Sufism, the piece documents events which took place in July 2017 during the annual celebration of the local saint in Moulay Bouchta.

Informed by Ramia Beladel’s research on Sufi healing, this sound piece relies on introspection, trance, and self-reconfiguration. One can hear songs, prayers, field recordings, and an excerpt of bokharia, a healing ritual based on the powerful sound of rifles. The piece also provides a stage for a performance by Beladel engaging with introspection, trance, and self-reconfiguration, breath by breath, balloon after balloon.

Recorded and produced by Gilles Aubry and Ramia Beladel.
Speaker: Ramia Beladel
39'03'', stereo audio

World premiere at Sonohr Radio Festival, Bern, 2019.
Moroccan premiere at Sakhra Encounters, a festival and exhibition in Moulay Bouchta, 2019.

This sound piece is part of the Norient Online Special Sawt, Bodies, Species, a joint publication with adocs, extending Gilles Aubry’s physical book Sawt, Bodies, Species: Sonic Pluralism in Morocco into a digital publication with additional video and audio materials. The Open Access publication of this book was made possible with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Biography

Gilles Aubry is an artist, musician, and researcher based in Lausanne and Berlin. He creates installations, films, performances, and radio pieces which explore the cultural, ecological and affective dimensions of sound and listening. He has an MA in sonic arts from the Berlin University of the Arts (UDK) and recently completed a doctoral thesis on sound, aurality, and ecological voices in Morocco. His works have been presented in numerous international festivals and art institutions, including the Marrakech Biennale (2014), documenta_14 in Kassel (2017), and Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid (2020). Follow him on Instagram, and on his Website.

Biography

Ramia Beladel, born 1987 in Marrakesh, graduated from the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) in Tetouan in 2013. She uses a variety of media (drawing, objects, photography, video) and formats (installations and performances). Her work has been presented in Morocco and internationally. Follow her on Instagram, or on her Website.

Published on May 04, 2023

Last updated on June 20, 2023

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Spirituality

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Sawt, Bodies, Species

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A Huge Reservoir of Life

Audio Essay

by Philipp Rhensius,

Juan José López

Ludwig Berger

The first form of communication was not language but vibration. Listen to an audio essay featuring the biologist Juan José López and sound artist Ludwig Berger who sonify species that soon threaten to become completely extinct – if we don’t listen.

Even with insects –
some can sing,
some can’t.
(Issa 1994)

List of References

Issa, Kobayashi. 1994. «[even with insects]». In The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa, edited by Robert Hass. Translated by Robert Hass. New York: Ecco Press.

This audio essay was created by the musician, writer, and Norient editor Philipp Rhensius aka Alienationist in autumn 2023 at Klang Moor Schopfe 2023. Each piece features conversations with (and sounds by) the artists and their installations, merged with Rhensius’ own compositions, field recordings, and poetry. To open a speculative realm, each piece is assigned to a poem.

Biography

Philipp Rhensius is an editor for Norient, writer, musician, sound artist, sociologist & musicologist, and curator from Berlin. His work investigates the connections between the micro- and macro-political and is driven by the idea that «feeling the chains» is the moment when emancipation begins. His music and sound art projects (Kl.ne, aphtc, Alienationst) merge sonic fiction with sardonic poetry and visceral sound. His texts are published in i.e. Taz, Spex, FAZ, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, WOZ and several book volumes. He runs the music label Arcane Patterns and hosts a monthly podcast on Noods Radio. Follow him on Instagram, his Website, or LinkedIn.

Biography

Juan José López (*1992) is researching how insects communicate through mechanical waves at the National Institute of Biology in Ljubljana. Among other things, biotremology investigates the extent to which the communication of arthropods allows conclusions to be drawn about the ecological context. The method can complement the study of different habitats and make a hidden world audible and tangible.

Biography

Ludwig Berger (1986), Zurich-based composer, artist and natural sound researcher, creates electro-acoustic compositions. In his works, landscapes become audible, be they cities, Japanese gardens, glaciers or a bee colony. Follow him on his Website.

Published on August 24, 2023

Last updated on April 02, 2024

Topics

Alienation

Listening

Nature

Soundscape

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Sonic Natureculture

When the Sound Listens Back

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Aesthetics Matter: New Ways of Storytelling

Audio Talk

by Thomas Burkhalter,

Abhishek Mathur

Suvani Suri

How can people work together across the constraints of time and space, and the cultures they determine? In this audio talk, Norient founder Thomas Burkhalter and the artists Abhishek Mathur and Suvani Suri discuss their work on the experimental podcast series TIMEZONES, and the potential of mixing documentary, ethnography, fiction, journalism, sound art, and improvisation.

They discuss the idea behind this series, its unique style of storytelling, and the challenges involved in working with artists from all over the world and across different political dimensions while trying to make the podcast organically and authentically global. As the three were in different time zones when recording the conversation, Thomas in Bern, Abhishek in Dehli, and Suvani in Sydney, the latter sent her contribution as additional thoughts recorded as voice notes.

The TIMEZONES series is produced by Norient with support from the Goethe-Institut. You can listen to the episodes here.

This audio piece is part of the Norient Special «All in It Together» in collaboration with Rewire Festival 2023.

Biography

Dr. Thomas Burkhalter is an anthropologist/ethnomusicologist, AV-artist, and writer from Bern (Switzerland). He is the founder and director of Norient and the Norient Festival (NF), co-directed AV-performances and documentary films (e.g. «Contradict», Berner Filmpreis 2020 + Al-Jazeera Witness), and is the author and co-editor of several books (e.g., «Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut», Routledge, «The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East», Wesleyan University Press). He teaches regularly at universities, and runs workshops for arts institutions. Since 2022 he produces the Norient Mixtape for Swiss National Radio SRF3. Currently, he is working on his new music duo «Melodies In My Head», and on the podcast series «Long Take: Life as an Artist». Follow him on Instagram, Research Gate, Academia.edu, Bandcamp, Spotify, or Meta.

Biography

Abhishek Mathur is a musician and sound designer based in New Delhi, India. He is a guitar player and founding member of Advaita, one of India’s most acclaimed bands. Abhishek has been composing, arranging, and producing music for media such as films, TV, theater, art installations, and podcasts for the past two decades. He is also the facilitator and course designer of a short term program in music production at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communications, New Delhi. Follow him on Instagram and Facebook.

Biography

Suvani Suri is an artist and researcher based in New Delhi. She works with sound, text, and intermedia assemblages and has been exploring various modes of transmission such as podcasts, auditory texts, sonic environments, objects, installations, fictions, experimental workshops, and live interventions. Her research interests lie in the relational and speculative capacities of listening, voice, aural/oral histories, and the spectral dispositions of sound that can activate critical imaginations. Actively engaged in thinking through the techno-politics that listening is embedded in, her practice is informed by the processes of production, mediation, perception, and distribution of sound. Alongside, she composes sound for video and performance works and teaches at several universities and educational spaces where her pedagogical interests conflate with a sustained inquiry into the digital and sonic sensorium. Follow her on her website, Instagram, or SoundCloud.

Links

Suvani Suri and Abhishek Mathur: «Imagining Worlds and Making Meaning With Four Artists From Delhi» (Timezones Episode 3)

Published on March 15, 2023

Last updated on June 13, 2023

Topics

Communication

Creativity

Ethnomusicology

Experiment

Place

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Specials

All in It Together

TIMEZONES

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A Wasted Breath Inside a Balloon

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Biography

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Snap

A Huge Reservoir of Life

List of References

Biography

Biography

Biography

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Specials

Aesthetics Matter: New Ways of Storytelling

Biography

Biography

Biography

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