‘Sounding Conflict - Aural Experiences in the Everyday'

In this keynote address at The International Symposium for Electronic Arts, Columbia, 11th - 18th June 2017,  Professor Pedro Rebelo introduced methodologies and strategies associated with recent participatory sonic arts projects in the UK (Sounds of the City, Belfast), Brazil (Som da Maré, Rio de Janeiro) and Portugal (Sou Cigano, Castelo Branco).

These projects explore how sound is related to ideas of place, identity and the everyday. Participatory strategies rooted in authors such as Paulo Freire and notions of relayed creativity (Georgina Born) inform this work which aims to assert sonic arts as a vehicle for social intervention, documentation and change. They have identified the power of sound when in comes to contested space, territorial politics and conflict. Belfast’s sonic histories reveal both segregated and shared conditions, articulated by sound memories and stories. Rio favela’s territorial conflicts manifest themselves in sound as events such as military occupations are meant to control local discourse and politics. The sonic arts function as an environment in which to explore these tensions of identity and territory in the context of everyday life. Field recordings, interviews, sensory ethnography, sound sculptures, immersive audio are all strategies which engage participants in revealing their own sound stories which are intrinsically rooted in space. The talk shared recent work in the context of two research projects funded by the Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research.