A sound cartography of the jewish diaspora
To watch SPREAD full video performance & conference at ZKM click here
This is a capture of google maps result of the travels made for SPREAD project during the years 2018 & 2019. Sound scans occurred in the cities of Buenos Aires, London, St Petersburg, Moscow, Brasov, Casablanca, Rabat, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Baden Baden, Venecia, Turín, Barcelona, Gerona & Amsterdam.
PROJECT
Spread investigates the intersection between history, geography and sound through the Jewish diaspora, creating a sound map and a narrative musical composition inspired by the aesthetics of the Hörespiel, being a documentary, educational and artistic project it can take the shape of a sound archive, installation or musical performance.
The project seeks to explore the cultural heritage and part of the history of the Jewish people, its cultural diversity as a result of multiple expulsions, forced migration processes and infinite pilgrimage through sound. Integrating field recordings, interviews and historical testimonies, a sound archive is built reflecting the routes of the diaspora and thinking the geography and the urban space as narrative of the history and the sonorous representation of its landscapes in the present.
This online sound archive is hosted on an interactive sound map, where the sounds are located in the specific geographical coordinates where they has been recorded and they can be heard through the app My City My Sounds free download this app developed by the ZKM – Zentrum für kunst und medientechnologie (Karlsruhe) also allows the possibility of making sonorous walks listening to the sonorous landscapes and the historical accounts of these spaces.
This is not only a documentary project, but also an artistic one taking also the form of sound installation and a musical performance.
Spread sound Composition – LIVE AT ZKM
PROCESS & RESEARCH
With the collaboration of IWO FUNDACIÓN – JEW INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH (Buenos Aires), an investigation was carried out in order to delineate semitic peoples route, traveled during their multiple expulsions and persecutions, to replicate these journeys as a performative act, making sound recordings on the way, following the traces of the diaspora.
Understanding sound from its anthropological and evocative side, the goal of the project is to establish a dialogue between the present and the past operating from different layers, on the one hand it can be understood as an educational project, investigating new ways of transmitting history, as well as seeking to establish new ways of understanding and relating to our daily environment, and the space we inhabit.
Trying to capture an audible universe that describes an habitat, a culture, spontaneous manifestations of its inhabitants, patterns of behaviour in public spaces, a whole sound identity and represents historical and sociocultural aspects of the jewish people by sound.
From Greece to Mexico, from Lithuania to Argentina, India and USA, the Jews are scattered throughout the world. From the destruction of the second temple at the hands of the Emperor Tito to the expulsion by the Kings of Spain in 1492, from the Russian Pogroms to Nazism the Jewish people had been the victim of multiple persecutions and attacks, forcibly becoming a nomadic community in an eternal migrant process.
APPRECIATIONS & EXPERIENCES
As a result of these experiences variety of sounds and impressions was collected: from a gefilte fish recipe in Russian to a religious children´s football match in the Venice Ghetto, from the atmosphere of a former bagel shop in Brick lane to a Shabbat ceremony in Jabad Barcelona, an Yiddish lesson in Buenos Aires, a tourist guide explaining how the word Bank originates with the old Jewish moneylender in Spain, a Romanian rabbi describing Jewish life in his city, the sounds of the Arab market that surround the old synagogue in Casablanca, the sounds of a water memorial built on a burned synagogue in Freiburg are some of the sound postcards that make up this work and try to portray Jewish life, its diversity, its history, its wealth.
The essence of SPREAD is to represent this dispersion of the Jewish people through sound, the cultural diversity that the Jewish people obtain as a product of these constant migratory movements that have been perpetuated for thousands of years, adopting different languages, customs, inhabiting different geographic environments and always trying to preserve its essence.
For listen the sound map of the project click here or see the playlist below.
- SPREAD – Sound archive worldwide
SPREAD
WORLD Sound Cartography of the jewish diaspora
- SPREAD – KARLSRUHE sound archive
Research site specific conducted in the city of Karlsruhe during the month of February 2019 with testimonies, interviews and field recordings in the context of the residence at the ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie – My City My Sounds in collaboration with the historical archive of the city and historian Juergen Schuhladen Kraemer.
SPREAD
KARLSRUHE Sound Cartography of the jewish diaspora
Munich Center of Community Arts – MUCCA
This project was made in collaboration and with the support of ZKM Zentrum für kunst und medien (Karlsruhe), Asylum Arts (New York) and Fundación IWO (Buenos Aires) it was presented as a sound installation and concert at ZKM (Karlsruhe) and Music Is Festival (Munich)
- Images from some of the different explored locations – worldwide
