Passing Sounds

I realise that the topic I am going to research may not be such an obvious choice considering my ethnicity. But I also think that it’s important to talk about the issues that are significant to us, and that, perhaps, even a white caucasian woman’s voice may have some value. Coming from a small town in Poland from a working class background I didn’t get much exposure to clubbing. After coming to London I started working in various clubs and naturally immersed myself into the scene. As an immigrant and a woman, I have always had to fight for respect and my own voice, which I hadn’t even realised at a time. After discovering Detroit’s techno, particularly Drexciya, and its origins and history, I felt deeply touched and wanted to find out more. It’s the history of oppression, pain, racism and discrimination but also a history of the community, unity, resistance and music. History of techno.

Here in the Western world a commodification and industrialisation of techno occurred and its original purpose almost entirely vanished. In many places touched by social injustice, the electronic music scene is still a tool for fighting the oppressor and therefore being stamped on, silenced and criminalised. At the same time, The West made a multi-million business out of what truly is a resistance movement and completely ceased to acknowledge its roots.

I believe that privilege should oblige those who have it to educate themselves and others about the world and art we are all engaging with, to make the clubs safe and inclusive spaces, especially considering the minority groups thanks to which this whole culture emerged.

Language is a very powerful tool, although sometimes it can overcomplicate or neglect the matter. It is the main form of interpersonal communication, but it can be also used to create delusion and spread propaganda. Using non-verbal communication systems such as image and sound can enrich and deepen the conversation. Therefore, using all those elements together opens up more possibilities for intersectional inclusion, makes communication easier and the message more accessible.

As a privileged person, I would like to hear, learn from and present the voices of people from underrepresented groups who are experiencing discrimination and oppression and ask them, how we, as an international community, can help to decolonise and give access to music and sound art to those less privileged.

Last week we went to the British Sound Archives. Going through the history of sound recording devices and different ways of storing them using different ways and materials to make them and some interesting curios like audio tapes made of wire (used in the USA). An insight into work and issues that archive workers encounter was fascinating and made me think of the importance of preserving history, and how difficult it is at the time when everything changes so fast that what is the state-of-the-art today will most likely become an obsolete very soon.

We also discussed how incredibly bizarre and startling the sound inventions such as graphophones must have been to people who were experiencing it hundred years ago. It made me think of the times, when creators were inventing ways for everyone else to follow, building new machines and going the routes no one ever walked before. My personal experience now is that we already have so much of different technologies that it is really hard to come up with something groundbreaking. Even while creating, the number of possibilities often paralyses me. I am sure that creativity isnt “finished” and that humanity wont stop just now, but i have a feeling it’ll expand digitaly and vitualy rather than in analogue world.

Are people these days can still surprised and amazed by new and upcoming technologies? Is there something we can not even imagine that will reveal itself during our lifetimes? Nourishing and protecting the pest has a big role in it, I believe. Old-world ways will always reflect in the new world, in one way or another. In the movie “The Last Angel of History” the trajectories of three black musicians and visionaries : Su-Ra Lee Scratch Perry and George Clinton are intersecting at the moment they never met and did not know each others work. I can see the fenomenon of entrainment again, although this time it appears outside of the human body – on a methaphysical and spiritual level. More about the concept of entrainment in my previous post: https://prawncoctail.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/10/27/entrainment/

NOTES TAKEN AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

Phonoaurograoh -T.Edison 

1882-Graphopjone – wax cylinder used for replaying the sound, quality was much better than gramophones (produced in Peckham )

1929- instantaneous discs – used I.e. recorded messages from war times 

1935- magnetic recording – audio tape (developed in Germany)

1.acetate

2.polyester 

1948 – micro groove disc (styler??/stylo )

Dub (aluminium) plates are not meant to be distributed as they get damaged, the top layer of (cellulose nitrate or gelatine (cheaper)laquer??) comes off and the information is lost 

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Tape modern 

Scientific oven

Digital- measuring/reproducing the sound wave (rather than drawing/embedding it in analog methods)

Archiving audio data never ends, it’s about constantly finding new formats of storing it that will be possible to replay 

Project “True echos”

Setrac mekian- bootlegger from Armenia 

Electric tonalities – that’s how first electronic music used to be called (Forbidden planet)

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“Retromania” – book

“The polictical economy of music”

I watched a discussion panel organised by my favourite London club Fold, touching upon the roots of electronic music and clubbing and how the scene could improve its inclusivity towards ethnic minorities and educate people about the origins of the movement. The electronic music scene (techno in particular) is often considered “white”, as the vast majority of club promoters and performers are white and male. Therefore, those nights attract a predominately white crowd and, even though the scene is getting more and more inclusive, there is still a great lot to do to make it a safe space for those excluded groups. 

Panellists are discussing the historical and social context of electronic music and its condition now, particularly across Europe and the UK in comparison to the USA. As members of both – the black and club scene communities, NIKS, Jordan Hallpike and Charles Olisankewu discuss the history and social aspect of electronic music, their own experiences in the industry and the ideas of expanding its accessibility and inclusivity. Tokenism is one of the topics that hasn’t been talked about enough, and which affects the majority of artists coming from ethnic minorities. While techno music was born in working-class black and queer communities, it is clear that nowadays those groups have limited access to it, whether we’re talking about participating in those events as an audience or being an artist. There are more and more people from these groups that belong to the scene, but it is still dominated by white cis males. 

This panel opened up my interest in the topic of decolonising electronic music. It is incredibly bizarre that a large number of the audience has no idea what are they listening to, and at the same time spends loads of money, going to electronic music events. Money that fills the pockets of people who are benefiting from culture and music that does not belong to them and cease to educate their audience or recognise the artists. People, who colonised electronic music just as their ancestors colonised foreign lands years back. 

I think that problem with sound arts is its lack of accessibility and understanding of what it actually is. I think that we are lacking a general definition here as such, and sound art is being gradually more and more defined, which in this case makes it even freer and open to all sorts of experiments (which for some may not make the understanding of it any easier). But, is it a problem that really matters? Does it bother anyone else but the ones involved? On one hand, there is a number of artists in the mainstream media that produce something more than just popular music. Bjork for instance, combines elements of folk, techno and all other possible traditional genres of music, with something that is not that easily explained but rather felt inside. Blackheine’s performances oscillate between an immersive theatre/ spoken word/ hip hop and noise show. On the other, sound art exhibitions can often be confusing and hard to grasp for most apart from the minority of truly passionate sound connoisseurs.

Why sound art should be more accessible?