And Who Sees the Mystery

Video Essay

In 1959 Paul Bowles recorded an ahwash music performance in the village Tafraout in Morocco. Following the repatriation in 2010 of the Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection from Washington DC to Tangier, Gilles Aubry and Zouheir Atbane undertook collaborative research on the reception of these recordings in today’s Morocco.

This film documents the authors’ residency in Tafraout. In exchange with local musicians, the artists deliver an interpretation of the return of these music recordings to their location of origin, including the documentation of listening sessions, discussions, and music sessions. The work examines the micro-politics of invisibility: Paul Bowles as an «invisible spectator»; the veil as a strategy of resistance during the French occupation of Morocco; the Pythagorean curtain of French acousmatic music.

Shot and produced by Gilles Aubry, 2013.
27'01'', HD video

World premiere at ESAV Marrakesh, as part of the exhibition Why Ain’t You Rich if You’re so Smart, 2014.

This video 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

Zouheir Atbane, born 1983 in Casablanca, is a contemporary dancer and sound artist. Starting with the study of Gnawa music, Zouheir’s art practice has developed through his numerous collaborations with Casablanca based dance company 2k_far and other artists. He now works as a freelance sound artist. Follow him on Instagram.

Published on May 04, 2023

Last updated on September 18, 2023

Topic

Encounter

All Topics

Special

Sawt, Bodies, Species

Snap

print as pdf

STONESOUND

Video Essay

by Gilles Aubry,

Abdeljalil Saouli

This video is a documentation of a joint experiment in stone sounding in Moulay Bouchta, Morocco. The artist Abdeljalil Saouli speaks about his relationship with stones, as part of a local history of co-evolution between humans and their environment.

A rich soundscape emerges, somewhere between a lithophone instrument, a sound lab, and a living ecosystem carved by water erosion. The general notion of «sound» is re-examined through the notion of «stonesound», pointing to a relational understanding of sound and listening.

Shot and produced by Gilles Aubry and Abdeljalil Saouli in 2020.
10'23'', HD video

World premiere at Sakhra Encounters, a festival and exhibition in Moulay Bouchta, 2019.
International premiere at Simon Fraser University as part of the Festival A Light Footprint in the Cosmos, 2022.

Biography

Abdeljalil Saouli, born in Fez in 1984, graduated from the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tetouan (INBA) in 2012. He became known as part of a new generation of artists in Morocco and participated in several individual and group exhibitions in the country and abroad. Follow him on Instagram.

Published on May 04, 2023

Last updated on September 18, 2023

Topics

Experiment

Nature

Sound

All Topics

Special

Sawt, Bodies, Species

print as pdf

Salam Godzilla

Video Essay

by Gilles Aubry

Agadir, Morocco, 1960. A violent earthquake destroyed the whole town, except for a few buildings, including the Salam movie theater. By a strange twist of fate, apparently the film shown that night was Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a famous figure of post-apocalyptic days. This coincidence guides Gilles Aubry, all ears to echoes of the past, as he leads an investigation and tries to spot distant or tenuous traces left by time.

This video essay features rich material, where dinosaur tracks, newsreels, or even seismic surveys can resonate with poetic verses sung by the Agadiri musician and local cultural agent Ali Faiq, or the movements of female rwais dancers. Shot inside the cinema and in the surroundings of Agadir, the film is driven by an abstract soundtrack recorded on location.

Shot and produced by Gilles Aubry in 2019.
40'35'', HD video

World premiere at Visions du Réel International Film Festival, Nyon, 2019.
International premiere at FID Marseille 2019.
Moroccan premiere at Arab Media Lab, Marrakesh, 2020.

Biography

Published on May 04, 2023

Last updated on September 18, 2023

Topics

City

Nature

All Topics

Special

Sawt, Bodies, Species

print as pdf