Tuning in – Listening to: Sonic Resonance and Frequencies of an Institution
Christina Werner in conversation with Emeka Ogboh and Neo Muyanga
Emeka Ogboh reflects sonic traditions, acoustic spaces and the quality of listening within a wider context of shaping collective memory and an institution’s cultural legacy. His work engages with the past and present of the Association of African States; aims to explore its guiding concepts, such as pan-Africanism; and directly references its visions and rhetorical innovations in the form of a dynamic archive of voices, sounds and thoughts. With the AU motto “Unity in Diversity” as a conceptual basis, Ogboh developed the overall ideas for the work. Acknowledging that listening is more than a gesture, Sonic Communarity: The African Union 20 to 20,000 Hz presents listening both as an attitude and as the taking-of-a-position for thoughts to “space out” into the world. The voices of the past recall the need to revisit the principle of “Unity in Diversity” again in order to (re)create common goals for coming generations.
– Emeka, what was your response when you won the competition to create an artwork for the building of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia?
EO: The first thing that came to my mind was that this is great news for sound art and aspiring sound artists on the Continent. It is a rare occurrence when a sound installation proposal wins over other art forms, taking the top prize. This is probably the first time it has happened on the Continent. That means that things are changing – a shift towards embracing new media and art forms. This will encourage young sound artists, some of whom have been in touch with me for a long time, to keep on working.
– What makes the medium of sound special to you?
EO: Of all the various digital media I have worked with, sound is the strongest medium for me. What I find fascinating is its ability to convey emotions and create immersive experiences that can potentially transport the listener from one time or space to another. The experience of sound involves complete immersion – not just for the artist creating the sound piece but also for the audience.
– How did you work with the site-specific, context and how did you find your source material for Sonic Communitary: The African Union 20 to 20,000 Hz?
EO: It started with visiting the site and its spaces in order to understand and sense the layout and how the acoustics could work on-site. I decided to work with a series of sound installations that form a sonic parkour, connecting indoor and outside spaces. The idea started with the African Union anthem, which centres on African unity and diversity. Then, I researched in the AU archives and other archives around the Continent guided by my interest in concepts of Pan-Africanism and searching for prominent speeches that fit the installation’s theme. I was excited to find recordings of the OAU’s founding ceremony. Excerpts from these historic speeches now intersect with the vocal composition centred on the AU anthem as well as with the choir piece created by Neo Muyanga. The garden inspired a specific composition using bird vocalizations from throughout the Continent. In order to ascertain the environmental impact of these bird calls on the local bird population, I worked with a local ornithologist and referred to his expertise when curating the bird sounds for garden.
– At a very early stage you invited Neo Muyanga to contribute and react to your ideas for African Union, which resulted in the composition ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke. Both of you have been in artistic dialog for the past years. In what ways do you see the project as continuation of common interests and an on-going dialogue?
EO: Although we each come from a different professional background, we have a lot of common interests. Both of us have been exploring the topic of archives, especially with regard to working with African sounds and music. Another thematic interest we share lies in conceptualisations of Pan-Africanism, most often in the form of cultural movements that only regain their strength in contemporary versions and visions. The Pan-African ideal of “unity in diversity”, which is the theme for the overall installation, is at the core of the final composition ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke. In Neo’s words, “It is a rousing, slow anthem full of dignity that reflects our hopes and dreams as Africans of a new reality, this 21st century”.
– Neo, what was your point of departure for creating the composition ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke in this specific context?
NM: In crafting the lyrics for the hymn ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke, I took inspiration from the preamble of the South African National Planning Commission (NPC), a text crafted by poets Antjie Krog and Njabulo Ndebele. The NPC is a document ostensibly meant to be a roadmap crafted by some of the region’s leading minds to help chart a new course for South Africa, redefining it in line with new African and global realities in the 21st century. And I wrote the composition, this anthem, in response to two very key happenings in 2015: the horrific attacks perpetrated by South Africans against immigrant black Africans now living in South Africa and a project I curated in São Paulo called Revolting Mass, which is an investigation into forms of protest threaded through the global South. The project seeks to understand the place of protest, specifically via the medium of music, and asks how we can use this form to re-interpret concepts such as Pan-Africanism and interdependence in the African Diaspora of the 21st century. The work I created for Emeka’s installation refers directly to those debates and to the current African realities of living with legacies of violence, conquest, oppression and resistance, and the need for those same Africans to turn a new page where Africans of many nations find joy in learning from one another and working together compassionately towards a new 21st century reality.
– When referring to ideas of Pan-Africanism and the motto “unity in diversity”, how do you relate the historic use and understanding of those concepts to current debates and forms of expression?
EO: African Union was founded when many African countries were breaking free from the clutches of colonialism. Therefore the topic of Pan-Africanism, unity and peace is very prominent in these speeches. Choosing to work with those topics today, I endeavour to reassess the impact of such concepts. My interest lies in breaking the traditional norms and using new media art forms to enter the discussion. If that includes issues of Pan-Africanism, diversity, the African Diaspora or others, the tools to engage in the discussion do not belong exclusively to the realm of the political or the economic or the bureaucratic. Music and sound, art and poetry, protest culture and street art – all these forms of communication contribute and can have impact by critically reflecting on social issues, which often goes hand in hand with the desire for freedom of expression, and by engaging the people. We are supposed to be a part of an international integration that involves the exchange of different aspects of culture, language, translation. The work questions the slogan “Unity in Diversity” and the quest for sameness in an increasingly globalised world. The project’s elements of fragmentation, reiteration, translations and retranslations explore the losses and gains of such interactions, not only – but especially – as seen within a Pan-African trajectory.
– Both of you chose to work with vocal compositions based on different languages from the African Continent. Communication is a central motif. Could you elaborate on the use and significance of language and translation for this installation?
EO: With an estimated 1500 – 2000 distinctive African languages in existence, language is one of the things that separate us on the Continent. But this situation does not have to be divisive all the time. So I chose to work with different languages for this project in my proposal for exploring the “unity in diversity” theme. One aspect of the project is the AU anthem, translated and recited in various African languages: same anthem; different languages. Neo made this connection and achieved it by having the composition ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke performed in multiple languages, too. It is a way of saying we are one, even if we speak different languages.
NM: ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke, the title of the hymn, is in the IXam language. The IXam language is one of the world’s earliest languages and was spoken among some of the first people of humanity. The fact that it is now nearly extinct speaks to the concerted effort to decimate not only the people, but also the culture and heritage of southern Africa’s first inhabitants, through violent colonialism and sustained racial discrimination. Currently, there are efforts to revive the language in parts of South Africa and to teach it to young people in school, particularly in the Northern Cape. However, most South Africans today of all colours remain ignorant of the existence of the IXam, their language and their way of life. For the choral composition, I used the languages: IXam, Isizulu, Kiswahili, French, Sesotho and English. These are all treated equally as authentic African languages of the 21st century.
– Both of you share an interest in archives, in particular radio archives. Emeka, you have researched the Nigerian Radio Station for your work The Ambivalence of 1960 addressing Nigeria’s independence in 1960, for instance. And Neo, your work with the Pan African Space Station (PASS) also represents a contemporary approach to working with radio and audio archives. How have you experienced working with sound archives and what is the relevance of archival materials for your artistic practice?
EO: I have learned to let go of fixed ideas when I start going through an archive’s collection, instead remaining open to entirely unexpected discoveries. You never know how it will impact you. An archive is like going back in time for me, accessing a period that existed long before my time. My experience working with radio archives has been quite captivating. These voices and sounds from the past have a way of capturing your imagination and letting you connect to and reinvent the moments captured in the recordings. When I began working with the Nigerian independence audio archives, I found myself transported back to 1960s Nigeria. Those audio recordings opened up research on the lifestyle, fashion and architecture of that time. Archives are very relevant to my artistic practice, given my recent interest in history and the way nostalgia and memory intersect in the conceptualisation of the present.
NM: For me, recording is a prerequisite for archiving, where audio archives are concerned. With the Pan African Space Station (PASS) we seek to reinvent the ways in which audio archives of poetry, for instance, are treated and distributed. Considering the advent of new recording technology – and the resulting questioning of boundaries between different systems of listening and playing back, the democratisation of sound and of listening, its role as a collaborator in our myths – now is the moment to re-investigate our use of sound on and off the page, where literature is concerned. This even moves beyond the music and poetry collaborations that we seek to archive and redistribute, but is nonetheless informed and supported by them.
EO: We have to acknowledge that we are in the 21st century and there have been many technological advances in music and sound production, information sharing platforms and new tools. Therefore every existing archive should be digitised, backed up and catalogued if and where possible, not just for the purpose of research, but most importantly to safeguard archival materials. It would be disastrous, should anything happen to storage facilities such as the African Union’s archives, where the early audio recordings still exist in the form of audio cassettes and reels only.
– Thank you both very much.
Emeka Ogboh, Lagos, Nigeria; Berlin, Germany. Ogboh specialises in digital audio media and video and is co-founder of Video Art Network (VAN) Nigeria, a platform that promotes New Media art activities in Nigeria.
Neo Muyanga, Cape Town, South Africa. Muyanga is a composer, songwriter and performer. Muyanga composes musical plays and choral songs and has produced a variety of works for chamber orchestras and large ensembles. Muyanga co-founded the Pan African Space Station (PASS), a platform for Pan-African music and sound art on the Internet.
