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"To See and Remember" is a composition incorporating elements from a 1965 expedition field recording from the Chocó Department, in Colombia, by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith, who were then fellow students at the University of Cambridge. The recording that I selected, made on 5-inch reel tape, captures the sounds of the local Emberá people playing music with flute, drums and other percussive instruments. During my research, I discovered a 100-page diary kept by the field recordists, now preserved in the archives of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Reading the manuscript, it became clear that Ambache and Saumarez Smith were deeply committed to presenting the sounds of a culture from an isolated part of the world – as they wrote in their diary, “we wanted to be put entirely in their hands.”While studying the manuscript – often with the field recording playing on loop – I realised that some passages of text could work well as spoken-word accompaniment to the composition I had already begun creating. It also became apparent that I was approaching the work from the point of view of the field recordists themselves, rather than focusing solely on the environment depicted in the material, as I would normally. I was, in a sense, trying to hear and see the world as they did.My compositional process involved listening repeatedly to the original field recording in my audio production software, allowing its textures and rhythms to wash over me and guide my decisions. I cut up and rearranged sections of the recording and manipulated them around a drum loop, often stretching the tempo to slow down the percussive strikes and the trill of flute, creating drone-like reverberations. I then gradually added synthesisers, electric guitar and bass guitar, layering various modulation, delay and reverb effects. The final stage involved recording myself reading extracts from the diary, giving voice to the field recordists' written words alongside the “abundant music” of the Emberá people.Chocó flute and drum music with rattle reimagined by Jase Warner.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
Cockerel crowing: morning soundscape among the Chocó people of north-west Colombia.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
Storm: recording of torrential rain made during fieldwork in Colombia.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
What is the sound of a poetry work emerging from a fascinating, haunting, remote (for the poet) territory?A reverberation, a story, a journey within a journey, moving through spaces and beings. Awe and gratitude for merging voices temporally scattered. An original 55 second recording, an Indigenous woman calling to a parrot on the Purricha river, a diary, two students – Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith - their anthropological research and a summer trip to Chocó Department, Colombia, 1965.We hear therefore we feel, in a process of listening to archived sounds, screeching ghosts, deep listening into ourselves, with body and soul, listening across species and time, listening against, as a political stance of resistance. Calling and answering to connect and become memory. And then receiving, page by page/jpeg by jpeg, the 1965 journal written by our travellers, and zooming and corresponding with a fellow artist who by chance is an anthropologist, Colombian, learning with Chocó's riverine communities and she is amazing.Walking. My Pitch (born a dog in this life), my Zoom H6 and JRF hydrophone, daily interviews with our friends, the Bacchiglione river, the mesmerising bee-eaters, herons, cormorants, crows and a rooster at the foot of the Euganean Hills (Italy). Writing and accompanying lines and rhymes on a modern lyre, the Lyra8 organismic synth, like a modern poet. For words and their soundscape are just part of a shared macro-micro-layered ecosystem, as the experience you are about to have.Poem: Ode to a River a Parrot a Womanwe hear you loud, raucous shriek screet screet screetfrequency of kindivine communing, lorascreech in the air, call to uswe are calling to yougurgles & burrows through the river, Purrichaspeak of your fiery thirstburst & boost the uncanny acrossthis land, a marsh-threshold gold they mined, & stillstories gold unfolds a butterfly idling, sidling, gliding*chew & spit & make chicha gentle woman, wife of Narciso your mirror codeis calling to usemerge & interrupt our noiseyour voice persists aglowthroughout the moist forestyou too wear feathersprecious gold-maize plumageancestral heritage, resist restore bonds, your sound echoes centuries of strugglewe hear you*line from the 1965 diary (page 17)Spanish spoken word te oímos/ llámanos/te estamos llamando/te oímos/fermento en la boc/fermento colectivo/fermento de reexistencias de ríos/llamados de ríos a traves de loros/ es un canto/ actos mimeticos de reciprocidad/te oimos/llamanos/te llamamos/sonidos portales a otros/tiempos a otros universos/memorias ribereñas/vidas en reexisntencia/quién oye a quién/quién llama y quién/chicha ferment/aguas compartidas/de boca en boca/aguas que fermentan y alimentan los cuerpos/cuerpos de agua cuerpos de río/ríos de oro ríos de sangre/ríos que son testigos de esclavitud y violencia colonial/supervivencias sónicas/portalComposition:Poem: written and read by Ilaria BoffaSpanish spoken word: written and read by Colombian anthropologist and artist Elizabeth Gallon DrosteSoundscape: field recording taken by Ilaria Boffa inside the Bacchiglione river and at the ‘Anello dei Colli Euganei' in Padua-Italy w/ JRF hydrophone and Zoom H6 recorder. Intro and outro, Lyra8 organismic synthetiser, by Ilaria Boffa. Acknowledgements:My grazie from the bottom of my heart to the Purricha river, that parrot and all the birds in Chocó department, to Narciso's wife and all the Indigenous people mentioned in the diary, and to Jonathan (1945–1968) and Richard (1945-2023).Special thanks to artist, anthropologist and researcher Elizabeth Gallon Droste (https://elizabethgallondroste.net).Chocó woman calling a parrot reimagined by Ilaria Boffa.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds
with Zoe Griffithhosted by Chris Gratien and Kalliopi AmygdalouInheritance and the transfer of property across generations connects the history of families to a broader analysis of political economy, particularly in societies where wealth and capital are deeply rooted in the earth. In this episode, Zoe Griffith provides a framework for the study of family history through the lens of the mulberry tree and its produce in a study of Ottoman court records from Tripoli (modern-day Lebanon).Stream via Soundcloud (preferred / US) Zoe Griffith is a doctoral candidate at Brown University studying the early modern Mediterranean (see academia.edu)Chris Gratien is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University researching the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. (see academia.edu)Kalliopi Amygdalou is a doctoral candidate in the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College in London working on the relationship between national historiographies and the built environment in Greece and Turkey (see academia.edu)Episode No. 130Release date: 18 November 2013Location: Kurtuluş, IstanbulEditing and Production by Chris GratienBibliography courtesy of Zoe GriffithCitation: "Mulberry Fields Forever: Family, Property, and Inheritance in Ottoman Lebanon," Zoe Griffith, Chris Gratien, and Kalliopi Amygdalou, Ottoman History Podcast, No. 130 (November 18, 2013) http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2011/11/ottoman-lebanon-property.html. BIBLIOGRAPHYAbu Husayn, Abdul Rahim. Provincial Leaderships in Syria, 1575-1650. Beirut: American University in Beirut, 1985.Cuno, Kenneth. The Pasha’s Peasants: land, society and economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Doumani, Beshara. “Introduction.” In Beshara Doumani, ed. Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003: 1-19.--- “Adjudicating Family: The Islamic Court and Disputes between Kin in Greater Syria, 1700-1860.” In Beshara Doumani, Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003: 173-200.Ergene, Boğaç. Local Court, Provincial Society, and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: legal practice and dispute resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652-1744). Leiden: Brill, 2003.Fay, Mary Ann. “Women and Waqf: toward a reconsideration of women’s place in the Mamluk household.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997): 33-51.Ferguson, Heather. “Property, Language, and Law: Conventions of Social Discourse in Seventeenth-Century Tarablus al-Sham.” In Beshara Doumani, ed. Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003: 229-244.‘Imad, ‘Abd al-Ghani. Mujtama’ Trablus fi zaman al-tahawwulat al-‘uthmaniya. Tripoli, Lebanon: Dar al-Insha’ lil’Sihafah wa’l-Tiba’ah wa’l-Nashr, 2002. Imber, Colin. “The Status of Orchards and Fruit Trees in Ottoman Law.” Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 12 (1981-82): 763-774.Mundy, Martha and Richard Saumarez-Smith. Governing Property, Making the Modern State: law, administration, and production in Ottoman Syria. London: I.B. Taurus, 2007.Tezcan, Baki. The Second Ottoman Empire: political and social transformations in the early modern world. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Music: Wadi al-Safi - Ya al-Tut al-Shami
with Zoe Griffithhosted by Chris Gratien and Kalliopi AmygdalouInheritance and the transfer of property across generations connects the history of families to a broader analysis of political economy, particularly in societies where wealth and capital are deeply rooted in the earth. In this episode, Zoe Griffith provides a framework for the study of family history through the lens of the mulberry tree and its produce in a study of Ottoman court records from Tripoli (modern-day Lebanon).Stream via Soundcloud (preferred / US) Zoe Griffith is a doctoral candidate at Brown University studying the early modern Mediterranean (see academia.edu)Chris Gratien is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University researching the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. (see academia.edu)Kalliopi Amygdalou is a doctoral candidate in the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College in London working on the relationship between national historiographies and the built environment in Greece and Turkey (see academia.edu)Episode No. 130Release date: 18 November 2013Location: Kurtuluş, IstanbulEditing and Production by Chris GratienBibliography courtesy of Zoe GriffithCitation: "Mulberry Fields Forever: Family, Property, and Inheritance in Ottoman Lebanon," Zoe Griffith, Chris Gratien, and Kalliopi Amygdalou, Ottoman History Podcast, No. 130 (November 18, 2013) http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2011/11/ottoman-lebanon-property.html. BIBLIOGRAPHYAbu Husayn, Abdul Rahim. Provincial Leaderships in Syria, 1575-1650. Beirut: American University in Beirut, 1985.Cuno, Kenneth. The Pasha’s Peasants: land, society and economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Doumani, Beshara. “Introduction.” In Beshara Doumani, ed. Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003: 1-19.--- “Adjudicating Family: The Islamic Court and Disputes between Kin in Greater Syria, 1700-1860.” In Beshara Doumani, Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003: 173-200.Ergene, Boğaç. Local Court, Provincial Society, and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: legal practice and dispute resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652-1744). Leiden: Brill, 2003.Fay, Mary Ann. “Women and Waqf: toward a reconsideration of women’s place in the Mamluk household.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997): 33-51.Ferguson, Heather. “Property, Language, and Law: Conventions of Social Discourse in Seventeenth-Century Tarablus al-Sham.” In Beshara Doumani, ed. Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003: 229-244.‘Imad, ‘Abd al-Ghani. Mujtama’ Trablus fi zaman al-tahawwulat al-‘uthmaniya. Tripoli, Lebanon: Dar al-Insha’ lil’Sihafah wa’l-Tiba’ah wa’l-Nashr, 2002. Imber, Colin. “The Status of Orchards and Fruit Trees in Ottoman Law.” Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 12 (1981-82): 763-774.Mundy, Martha and Richard Saumarez-Smith. Governing Property, Making the Modern State: law, administration, and production in Ottoman Syria. London: I.B. Taurus, 2007.Tezcan, Baki. The Second Ottoman Empire: political and social transformations in the early modern world. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Music: Wadi al-Safi - Ya al-Tut al-Shami
with Nora BarakatGroups variously labeled as nomadic and tribal formed an integral part of Ottoman society, but because their communities exercised a wide degree of autonomy, they are often represented as somehow separate or "other" to urban and settled populations. However, the social history of these communities reveals that tribes and their members were involved in the continual transformation of Ottoman society not just as a force of resistance or hapless victims of state policies but also as participants. In this podcast, Nora Barakat deals with the social history of such communities, which appear in the court records of Salt (in modern Jordan) as "tent-dwellers," and their place in the complex legal sphere of the Tanzimat era during which both shar`ia law courts as well as new nizamiye courts served as forums for legal action.Stream via Soundcloud (US / preferred) Nora Barakat is a PhD candidate at UC-Berkeley studying the legal and social history of Ottoman SyriaChris Gratien is a PhD candidate studying the history of the modern Middle East at Georgetown University (see academia.edu)Citation: "Pastoral Nomads and Legal Pluralism in Ottoman Jordan." Nora Barakat and Chris Gratien. Ottoman History Podcast, No. 61 (July 24, 2012) http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2012/07/pastoral-nomads-and-legal-pluralism-in.html.SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHYAgmon, Iris. Family & court: legal culture and modernity in late Ottoman Palestine. Syracuse, NY : Syracuse University Press, 2006.Kasaba, Reşat. A moveable empire : Ottoman nomads, migrants, and refugees. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.Mundy, Martha, and Richard Saumarez Smith. Governing Property: Making the Modern State Law Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007.Rogan, Eugene L. Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Rubin, Avi. Ottoman Nizamiye Courts: Law and Modernity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
with Nora BarakatGroups variously labeled as nomadic and tribal formed an integral part of Ottoman society, but because their communities exercised a wide degree of autonomy, they are often represented as somehow separate or "other" to urban and settled populations. However, the social history of these communities reveals that tribes and their members were involved in the continual transformation of Ottoman society not just as a force of resistance or hapless victims of state policies but also as participants. In this podcast, Nora Barakat deals with the social history of such communities, which appear in the court records of Salt (in modern Jordan) as "tent-dwellers," and their place in the complex legal sphere of the Tanzimat era during which both shar`ia law courts as well as new nizamiye courts served as forums for legal action.Stream via Soundcloud (US / preferred) Nora Barakat is a PhD candidate at UC-Berkeley studying the legal and social history of Ottoman SyriaChris Gratien is a PhD candidate studying the history of the modern Middle East at Georgetown University (see academia.edu)Citation: "Pastoral Nomads and Legal Pluralism in Ottoman Jordan." Nora Barakat and Chris Gratien. Ottoman History Podcast, No. 61 (July 24, 2012) http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2012/07/pastoral-nomads-and-legal-pluralism-in.html.SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHYAgmon, Iris. Family & court: legal culture and modernity in late Ottoman Palestine. Syracuse, NY : Syracuse University Press, 2006.Kasaba, Reşat. A moveable empire : Ottoman nomads, migrants, and refugees. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.Mundy, Martha, and Richard Saumarez Smith. Governing Property: Making the Modern State Law Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007.Rogan, Eugene L. Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Rubin, Avi. Ottoman Nizamiye Courts: Law and Modernity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.