NFF Essay Collection 2021
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NFF Essay Collection 2021 Emilie Friedlander Underdog Music Imprint Contents norient.com/emilie-friedlander/under- dog-music See Website for short abstracts on the essay #Music Business articles: https://norient.com/nothing-sounds André Santos Lisbon Before and After Listen to the Snaps: norient.com/andre-santos/lisbon-and-after soundcloud.com/norient/sets/snaps-nori- #Capitalism #Place #Tradition #City ent-film-festival #Tourism Lisa Blanning 1 Why Locality Still Matters: Gender Baltimore Club norient.com/lisa-blanning/why-locali- Nothing Sounds the Way It Looks Luisa Fernanda Uribe ty-still-matters-baltimore-club Publisher Norient Books Intersectionality Rules #Dance #Place norient.com/luisa-fernanda-uribe/intersec- 3 Editors Philipp Rhensius and Lisa Blanning tionality-rules Copy Editor Angus Finlayson #Gender Roles Sound Cover art and visual snaps Šejma Fere Audio snaps DJ Raph Agata Pyzik Alaka Sahani Layout gut&schön, Annegreth Schärli Ritual Of Masculinity Is the Pandemic a Heyday for Online Access norient.com/nothing-sounds norient.com/agata-pyzik/ritual-masculinity Unsung Heroes #Gender Roles #Ritual norient.com/alaka-sahani/pandemic-hey- NFF Essay Collection 2021 day-unsung-heroes Adam Harper #Sound #Mainstream NB004 Being Untrue to Yourself © 2021 Norient Books norient.com/adam-harper/being-unt- Dan Barrow Bern, Switzerland rue-yourself Cinesonic Holism #Parody #Queer norient.com/dan-barrow/cinesonic-holism #Sound ISSN 2 Gisela Swaragita This publication is part of the Capitalism The Poetry of Noises 10th Norient Film Festival 2021 norient.com/gisela-swaragita/poetry-noises Noëmie Vermoesen #Sound #Community #City #Belonging An Ode to Imagination norient.com/noemie-vermoesen/ode-ima- Joseph Kamaru gination Hearing Is Believing With friendly support by #Capitalism #Creativity norient.com/joseph-kamaru/hearing-be- lieving Suhail Yusuf Khan #Sound #Perception #City Blood Is Thinner Than Money norient.com/suhail-yusuf-khan/blood-thin- Rayya Badran ner-money The Sound of Beirut’s Underbelly #Capitalism #Music Business norient.com/rayya-badran/sound-bei- ruts-underbelly #Sound #Perception #City 2 3 Simon Broughton 4 Fighting Back With Music 8 norient.com/simon-broughton/figh- Colonialism ting-back-music Belonging #Protest #War Chandra Frank Angus Finlayson The Racialized Gaze RRRKRTA More Sad Hits on Landscapes Static Resistance norient.com/angus-finlayson/more-sad- norient.com/chandra-frank/racialized-ga- norient.com/rrrkrta/static-resistance hits ze-landscapes #Protest #Desire #Depression #Colonialism #Othering #Race #Belonging 7 Clive Bell Grace Takyi Finding Refuge in Rebetiko Nobody Dey Get Us Perception norient.com/clive-bell/finding-refuge-re- norient.com/grace-takyi/nobody-dey-get- betiko us Daniela Seitz #Migration #Religion Underneath It All norient.com/daniela-seitz/underneath-it-all Keith Kahn-Harris Patricia Jäggi #Counter-Culture #Belonging Tongues and Borders Are The Ghosts Of Colonialism Immutable norient.com/patricia-jaggi/ghosts-coloni- Florence Jimenez Otto norient.com/keith-kahn-harris/ton- alism Let The Genius Go gues-and-borders-are-immutable #Colonialism #Spirituality #Voice norient.com/florence-jimenez-otto/let-ge- #Belonging #Communication nius-go #Perception #Creativity #Depression Aysel Özdilek 5 Waiting Room of Possibilities Spirituality Philipp Rhensius norient.com/aysel-ozdilek/wai- «Real World» Problems ting-room-possibilities Kamwangi Njue norient.com/philipp-rhensius/real-wor- #Belonging #Utopia No Life for the «Living-Dead» ld-problems norient.com/kamwangi-njue/no-life-living- #Perception #Communication dead #Spirituality #Dance #Ritual #Colonialism Lola Baraldi How You See Is What You Get Azin Feizabadi norient.com/lola-baraldi/how-you-see- Ebram the Breeze what-you-get norient.com/index.php/azin-feizabadi/ #Experiment ebram-breeze #Spirituality #Encounter Steph Kretowicz A Spirit Guides You norient.com/steph-kretowicz/spirit-gui- 6 des-you Protest #Creativity Martin Stokes A Yearning For Coherence norient.com/martin-stokes/yearning-co- herence #Protest #Voice 4 5 Gender is not naturally given but produced 1 Editorial by social and cultural forces. It refers to a so- cial role based on the sex of a person, a mode Gender of power that has been criticized especially by those whose culturally assigned sex and gender do not align, and Philipp Rhensius who are looking for terms and definitions that include, rather than exclude, their individual ways of being. According to the theorist Eve Nothing Sounds Kosofsky Sedgwick, «sexuality extends along so many dimensions the Way It Looks that aren’t well described in terms of the gender of object-choice at all» (Sedgwick 1990, 35). Films can illustrate what it feels like to live in this world. Yet they do In her essay «Intersectionality Rules», the writer and activist Lu- not only represent worlds, but also create them – and by that, the isa Fernanda Uribe addresses the lack of intersectional thinking in subjectivities of the audience. For this new Norient publication, ed- the feminist narratives of South American music scenes. Instead of itors Lisa Blanning and Philipp Rhensius commissioned 34 writers talking «exclusively about representation or identity», she suggests from 15 countries to share their thoughts on today’s world through that «we need to build more radical and collective spaces answering sound and music. While the 35 essays offer different perspectives questions about our privileges as agents of the music industry, even (personal, academic, autofiction) on different topics (Gender Roles, if we are women from the Global South.» Sound, Colonialism) they are all connected by one thing: an intense Some men from the Global North are at the center of critique in sensory effect, like a «punctum» (Barthes 1981), triggered by one writer Agata Pyzik’s essay. The female musicians in Uribe’s text at- of the 35 films under discussion. Thus, the texts are not so much tempt to break free from their gender roles; in Anna Gawlita’s film about as inspired by the films, unraveling narratives about worries, Krzyżoki, about a traditional Easter ritual in a Polish village, Pyzik dreams, and hopes in the 21st century that sometimes seem intensi- finds a desire for «id-pol based on nostalgia for the golden days». fied by the current COVID-19 pandemic. While, for her, there are good reasons why «masculinity is being By juxtaposing very different text styles and diverse perspectives, challenged by contemporary culture», she also understands how this publication seeks to be a collage, resisting the urge to universal- these men try to regain a sense of manhood. ize difference or create false coherence. Like some of the protago- Blurring the limits of gender and questioning a supposedly au- nists in the films – such as the Soundcloud rappers inCrestone , who thentic way of being is an important part of queer thinking. In his es- experiment with new ways of collective living – the texts create pos- say inspired by the feature film The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo, the itive disorientation to arrive at new, unexpected places of thought. musicologist Adam Harper reflects on how «the queer discovery of At best, this publication connects the unrelated – and separates the authenticity of the inauthentic (and vice versa) has had an incal- the supposedly consistent. For this editorial, the texts are loosely di- culable effect on the aesthetics and semiotics of the contemporary vided into eight blocks, drawing from the Norient Topics1: Gender, world». Capitalism, Sound, Colonialism, Spirituality, Protest, Perception, Belonging. In the following, I will briefly outline the essays relating to Categorizing has always been a modus ope- 2 each topic, in the above order. randi of capitalism, a system that tends to subordinate material and immaterial things Capitalism to profit. In the field of cultural labor, the ef- 1 Norient tells new stories about the world through music, sound, and noise from multiple perspec- tives and positions. To navigate through the vast range of issues in our essays, podcasts and films, fects of this ideology often lead to precarity. In her essay «An Ode to these stories are structured by the Norient Topics, attempting to create collages rather than organic wholes. These Topics are not fixed entities, but change and mutate constantly according to the Imagination», the writer and musician Noëmie Vermoesen describes stories told. 6 7 how creativity is increasingly threatened by the stress and precari- valuable source of knowledge – as indicated by many scholars in the ousness which is currently intensified by the forces of the pandemic. field of Sound Studies (e.g. Hirschkind 2012, 63).2 Inspired by the protagonist of the filmLes Contes Du Cockatoo, who This might also be why the sonic layer of films often goes unno- refuses to accept the constant pressure to be productive, she calls ticed, as the journalist Alaka Sahani points out in her essay «Is the for a world in which imagination is freed from measurable expecta- Pandemic a Heyday for Unsung Heroes?». Here, she claims that tions. films are very often celebrated for their protagonists, and less for the The musician and ethnomusicologist Suhail Yusuf Khan is any- people who are responsible for the actual audiovisual experience. thing but unproductive. As a celebrated Sarangi player, he is never- In her text on the documentary The Sound Man Mangesh Desai, she theless forced to self-market constantly. In his text «Blood Is Thinner asks if the COVID-19 pandemic could be an opportunity to rethink Than Money» he claims, without glorifying the past, that this need to the inequalities of star-centrism. find ways of generating income, hasn’t always been the case. The When it comes to countering existing hierarchies of perception, genre in which he operates, North Indian Classical Music, was once noise has often been the first music genre of choice. In her essay predominantly consumed and financed by the upper class. «The Poetry of Noises», the journalist Gisela Swaragita describes The seminal New York record store Other Music was once a how, after having been exposed to harsh sounds in the Indonesian somewhat egalitarian place, if not a haven for underdogs.