listening to this now, man from Mali says, in pretty good english (most others respond in other languages), after a passage of what sounds like Meredith Monk or Barabara Whatshername type of monotone experimental vocal music: "i'm going to be clear, very clear with you. this is simple noise. this is simple noise which can bother someone. for instance some people don't like the sound of others snoring."
hahaha...
info:
Label : Errantbodies / Ground Fault
Author : Alessandro Bosetti
Title : "African Feedback"
Format : 64 pages book with Compact Disc
ISBN: 978-0-9772594-5-8
Release date : November 2007
Through a process of listening and speaking, African Feedback documents an exchange between artist Alessandro Bosetti and residents of villages throughout West Africa. Playing music by various experimental and avant-garde composers to people met in villages, Bosetti records their responses, asking them what they are hearing, and how they relate to the music and sounds. Composing their responses, with field recordings made throughout his travels, African Feedback is a musical portrait of cultural translations, misunderstandings, different voices and languages. Including an audio CD and the transcriptions of the listening sessions, along with an introduction by the artist, African Feedback is a beautiful and beguiling work cutting across the ongoing questions of cultural difference.
Fragmented notes and diary pages on the making of "African Feedback" in 2004.
I spent a month in Mali and Burkina Faso asking villagers to listen to experimental music. The moment they put on the headphones I pressed ìPlayî on the CD and started recording with the DAT; everything that was said, all the stories, questions, silences, and breaths were recorded. I collected all the feedbacks, around twenty-two hours, almost an entire day. The operationís objective: to gather material for a, electro-acoustic composition. Hidden objective: to throw up for discussion itÖthemÖ theÖ
Once I returned to Europe, the first question that occurred to me with regard to this experience was: What were these feedbacks, how did they react? Itís hard to answer. For each person there was a different story. From an anthropological point of view, nothing was established. A silent scene.
After a few weeks of listening and re-listening to the tapes it struck me, however, that there was something common to all the reactions. A lack. There was a lack of surprise. Africans are surprised by nothing. There might be negative surprise, expressed as ìThis thing is surprising but absurd, it doesnít work,î or positive, like ìThis is surprising, strange, it interests me, I want to know more about it.î But no, nobody wanted to know anything else but at the same time, nobody dismissed it. It was as though they were thinking, ìThis person comes all the way here to do this work, to make us listen to this thing we donít understand there must be some reason for all this, a practical, solid, concrete reason. If this sort of thing exists then weíll try to understand what place it has in the universe.î They took part in the game without any particular enthusiasm, totally the arguments point blank without asking for any explanation. (Nobody, I repeat, nobody asked me why I was doing it! To the point that I started asking it of myself). They accept what seems to them to be ìthe reality of things.î
For an African, listening in headphones is practically the most unnatural thing possible. Traditional music is always bound to dance, to a collective experience and to the place. Headphones contradict all of this. Maybe this is why the image of elderly Africans with headphones on their ears always seemed curious and fascinating to me? Ibe forgot he was wearing headphones. He thought we could all hear what he was hearing. The condition is that sound should be socialized. The moment that Ibe accepted that he was alone in the listening, the music could stop being music and could become something else that could perhaps alarm him.
Composing the piece ìAfrican Feedbackî was like creating a mask for myself; the piece is itself a mask to be donned for the performance in order to re-negotiate a musical identity.
The misunderstanding came from the word ëmusicí: if it concerns music there couldnít be a difference between the music I was proposing and Dogon music. Once it was verified that it concerned ëmusicí it wasnít possible that I could be bringing something new and unknown because music existed in Dogon well before the arrival of Alessandro Bosetti (and would continue to exist after his departure as well). Naturally there were considering without being aware of the bigger issue or even the nature of the sounds they heard, which were very different from traditional Dogon music. But this didnít appear to concern them ... These kinds of misunderstandings were common, ìthe nature of thingsî is also that and is reflected through the immense innate power of giving different things the same name. If two things are called by the same name they are necessarily the same thing, even if seen from very different perspectives.
Akonio Dolo, a Dogon living in Paris, listened to the tapings and said to me: ìYou go too quickly, they didnít understand what you wanted from them, you canít ask such direct questions immediately, they need time to know you.î
But rather, for me the initial reaction is the one that counts, without preparation, without mediation. Iím not an anthropologist but a musician, whoís adopting ìrelationalî strategies to construct his music. Iím interested in the misunderstandings, the embarrassments, the stumblings, and the mistakes in communication that reveal something more real with respect to how not to make a ìliteral translation.î
They didnít understand what I wanted. But what actually did I want? Solo, my guide, often asked me, ìBut what reactions do you want?î I didnít know. I had no thesis to prove. ìAny reaction is good for me,î I said ìEven none, that also works.î
A friend listened to the tapes and said to me: ìBut donít you see that they donít understand anything. They donít know what you want.î
Why? Is there something to understand?
Sangha, Dogon country. The Club Med of anthropology? Often one had the sensation that while you were getting out the tape recorder your interlocutor knew better than you how things would unfold. If you do not have a specific desire for them to please, it can be quite problematic for the Sangha. Your interlocutor always tells you what he thinks you want to hear. In general, this is something that has to do with the Griault cosmology. Surprises are become fewer and farther between and everything becomes managed and negotiated within the perspective of an exchange. Months later, I said clearly what I thought to Akonio Dolo, while in Paris discussing the project. At first he was offended. I reiterated that most often in the end it came down to always talking about money, we always finished up with a clear reciprocal interest. ìItís logical,î he responded. But what was I searching for in Sangha? Even now I havenít received a convincing answer.
One of the projectís hidden discoveries was that of putting back into play ìin reverse motionî the exchange proposed by the Dogon to Marcel Griault (or, rather, by Marcel Griault to the Dogon ñ France was the occupying power -). So, they told him the cosmogony, vocally by an old blind Ogotemmeli hunter, in exchange for a ìpriceî deemed equal on both parts. This was in great demand by white ethnology so that afterwards he made his fortune at home and, at the same time, offered the Dogon in exchange; profitable future ties with the Occident, with France in particular. From that moment on, a flood of ethnologists, tourists, unidentifiable researchers, such as myself, etc. would arrive at the cliffs bringing a semblance of well-being ñ but only for a few, in this very poor region, one of the poorest in the world.
I also said that my work as a composer and sound artist had an ìanthropologicalî character but not being myself in any way an anthropologist I would have to perhaps choose a sustainable way to maintain and develop this character. The only way that came to my mind later was that of putting into play, ironically, a ìparody of an anthropological expedition,î representing the adventures of Marcel Griault and Ogotemmeli in the land of Dogon.
What would happen if, seventy years later, it would be me to offer my personal and subjective musical cosmogony, without any vague commercial or pedagogical desire, simply placing a CD player on the table, putting it at everybodyís disposal and seeing if would interest anybody?
Certainly comparing the cosmogony of a nation to a subjective one, put together in a few years by a young musician might appear arrogant if you donít consider the fact that itís a game, a ritual of revelation and irony.
...
The devil. When the Dogon say ìthe devilî they mean twisters made by the wind or even the empty eye at the whirlwindís center. An area of emptiness where itís best not to enter. They mean absence. Empty space. Or somewhere else. Often itís the silence in the music. Something thatís missing.
...
One day I went with Solo for a walk on the cliffs. ìDid you bring the camera?î he asked. ìNo,î I replied. ìIf you didnít bring the camera, itís not worth going. Letís not go.î ìBut Iím taking my eyes!î ìItís not the same thing, itís not worth it, weíre not going without the camera.î The Dogon ask for payment for every photograph taken in the villages, a way of distributing the touristsí money.
