Aesthetics Matter: New Ways of Storytelling

Audio Talk

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

All Topics

Specials

All in It Together

TIMEZONES

Snap

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

A Wasted Breath Inside a Balloon

Sound Piece

by Gilles Aubry,

Ramia Beladel

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

Topics

Ritual

Spirituality

All Topics

Special

Sawt, Bodies, Species

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Norient Mixtape #2: South Asian Pop meets Resistance

Mixtape

by Thomas Burkhalter

From M.I.A. to Charli XCX to Priya Ragu – South Asia between global pop, underground sounds, and protest. Norient founder Thomas Burkhalter travelled through South Asia for his upcoming podcast series South Asian Sound Stories and searched current sound streams. His second Norient mixtape offers bhangra pop, rap, indie sounds, and some quotes from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, The Maldives, and the diaspora – produced for SRF3, the Swiss National Radio pop channel.

Tracklist

Isuru Kumarasinghe: «That Butterfly in the Chest»
Ammy Virk: «Teri Jatti»
Jazzy B, Dr Zeus, Happy Singh: «Rude Boy»
Kaldi Moss: «Culture»
Simran Raj: «Kaali Shirt Waleyaa»
Karma DJ: «Racism»
Word Sound Power feat. Banth Singh, Delhi Sultanate, Chris McGuiness: «Comrades»
Rebel 7: «Not Eazy»
Coolie, Jaz Dhami, Jay1: «Kisan»
OJ Da Tamil Rapper: «Graveyard»
SOS, 30KEY!: «Ahad»
Bo Sedkid: «Kavvandha»
Manmeet Kaur: «Time Will Tale»
Arooj Aftab feat. Anoushka Shankar: «Udhero Na»
Phatcowlee: «Nidaauna Deu»
Marvan: «Culture»
Kaaktaal: «Jorgrostho»
Bo Sedkid: «Rahasin»
Aniruddh Menon (with Disco Puppet): «Sunsets»
Prya Ragu: «Adalam Va!»
Disco Puppet: «OK»
Aerate Sound: «Mages»
Yakawrath / Fira: «Flat Line»
K.O: «3DP AND Audiosynthesis»
reFux feat. Gandhi: «Awesome Comes Back»
Shorbanoor, Alien Panda Jury: «Cutlery»
ELSZ: «Take Me to the Sun»
Phatcowlee: «Insomnia»

Extended Playlist

Listen to an extended playlist on Spotify that will be updated with each new edition of the Norient Mixtape.

From the Norient Archive

Buy More Incense was the first production ever done in the name of Norient. Thomas Burkhalter and Michael Spahr have produced and directed this film in the year 2000. Since then many things have happened including 9/11. But somehow the documentary film about British Asian musicians in London and Birmingham is still not totally out of date.