[Commlist] Sound System Outernational #7 - Conference CFP

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Sound System Outernational #7 online

in association with Sonic Street Technologies ERC research project:

SOUND SYSTEMS AT THE CROSSROADS

12-16 July 2021, 4pm to 6pm UK time (BST)


SSO #7 Call for Participation:

Send a proposal of not more than 300 words by 3 May to 
(soundsystemouternational /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(soundsystemouternational /at/ gmail.com)>

Accompanied by a short bio (100 words).


Sound systems are currently at a crossroads despite the unprecedented 
explosion of the form during the last decades. Sound system culture has 
gained increasing attention from cultural organisations, the music 
industry and researchers. But the pandemic has been accelerating trends 
in both positive and negative directions.


In a positive direction online formats have been encouraging a new 
inventiveness and creativity in formats and content. A whole new range 
of opportunities are in the process of opening up for both practitioners 
and audiences and SSO #7 is part of this process.


In a less positive direction we have all certainly been missing the 
in-body experience of the sessions that are at the beating heart of 
sound system culture. The lockdown has silenced the streets worldwide, 
freezing sound system activities and depriving practitioners and the 
wider community of their primary source of income.


Even before the pandemic, the increasingly restrictive legislation, the 
gentrification of cities, the closing down of venues and public spaces, 
the threat and promise of commercial success, and the further policing 
of public life have posed a threat to the wellbeing of the culture.


SSO #7, ‘Sound Systems at the Crossroads’ aims to open a space for sound 
system practitioners, performers and scholars to come together to 
reflect on the challenges facing the culture today and to discuss which 
resources the movement can muster to pull through and ensure our 
continued flourishing.


In SSO #7, we ask, what are the obstacles facing sound systems today, 
and what kind of solutions can be found for them? In what ways can sound 
systems build a collective challenge to structures of power in present 
conditions? How do sound systems respond to the restrictions brought by 
hostile legislation, a lack of venues, and tightening noise regulations? 
What strategies have practitioners deployed to sustain themselves and 
the community when they are not allowed to play out? How has the role 
played by social media platforms to keep music alive under lockdown 
conditions affected this auditory, physically shared, street-based 
culture? How do we imagine the streets after the lockdown? And how do we 
envision our shared future in its aftermath?


We invite artists, engineers, musicians, selectors, academics, 
activists, researchers and anyone else who participates directly or 
indirectly in sound system culture to contribute to this online event.

  *

    Presentations can take the form of a talk, workshop, film screening,
    roundtable discussion, online sound system session and so on.

  *

    Approaches can include practice-as-research methodologies, drawing
    from Cultural and Postcolonial Studies, Sound Studies, Reggae
    Studies, Popular Music Studies, Critical Black Studies and Caribbean
    Critical Theory.

  *

    We welcome all engaging with sound system music, culture,
    technology, dance, oral history, business, marketing, etc, including
    from a gender and intergenerational perspective.

We welcome contributions in a range of formats, including:

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    Talks and presentations

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    Demonstrations

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    Hybrid talks and demonstrations

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    Performances live and/ or recorded

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    Live sound system sessions

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    Online exhibitions

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    Novel formats

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    Film screenings


Contributions welcomed on (but not limited to):

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    The global spread of sound system culture

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    History and futures of sound system in Jamaica and abroad

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    Urban gentrification, lack of venues, noise limitations

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    Sonic resistance and public space

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    Sound systems under lockdown

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    Creative responses to the lockdown

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    Imagining new possibilities

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    Sound systems and digital media: challenges and opportunities

  *

    Sound, technology and gender

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    Music, technology and black diaspora

  *

    Sound, music and migration

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    Auditory epistemologies

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    Vernacular knowledge and street technology


SSO #7 follows in the wake of previous events at Goldsmiths, Naples and 
Brazil (online) since 2017. Events and Collaborations 
<https://www.gold.ac.uk/sound-system-outernational/events-and-collaborations/>


Sound System Outernational is an ongoing initiative of practitioners and 
researchers, in association with Goldsmiths, University of London, 
dedicated to recognizing, stimulating and supporting sound system 
culture worldwide. SSO creates spaces for dance and discussion. We 
organize events to bring together:

  *

    Practitioners and researchers: we believe the ways of knowing of a
    popular culture and the knowledge systems of the academy have a lot
    to learn from each other.

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    Past, present and future sound system culture: intergenerational
    conversations strengthen our culture and ensure its future.

  *

    Technologies, aesthetics and politics: to understand the culture’s
    numerous forms, styles and media of creative expression.




SSO #7 Keynote Speakers:

Professor Emerita Carolyn Cooperis an inventive literary critic who has 
made an exceptional contribution to the development of Cultural Studies 
at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.  She is the author 
of two influential books - Noises in the Blood:  Orality, Gender and the 
‘Vulgar’ Body of Jamaican Popular Culture; and Sound Clash: Jamaican 
Dancehall Culture At Large. She is the editor of the award-winning 
collection of essays, Global Reggae.  Professor Cooper initiated the 
establishment of the University’s Reggae Studies Unit which she directed 
for a decade and a half.  She writes a weekly column for the Sunday 
Gleaneron a wide range of contentious issues; and blogs at 
carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com.  For her outstanding work in the field 
of Education, Professor Cooper was awarded the national honour, the 
Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander in 2013.


During the last fifteen years, Gabre Selassiehas stimulated the 
resurgence of roots reggae and dub in Jamaica through the Kingston Dub 
Club, a sound system session he staged at various venues before setting 
up a permanent weekly residency at his home in Jack’s Hill, overlooking 
Kingston, which gradually became one of the island’s most celebrated 
venues. Born Karlyle Lee in 1969 to Chinese-Jamaican parents, the former 
dancehall selector became Gabre Selassie after joining the Ethiopian 
Orthodox Church; working with Augustus Pablo’s Rockers International 
sound system cemented his commitment to message music and after visiting 
the Dub Club of London in 2000, he began playing Rastafari-oriented 
roots and culture in Kingston, including dub made overseas, during a 
time when hardcore dancehall held sway. He soon inspired Jah9 to launch 
her music career and gave space to Reggae Revivalists such as Chronixx 
and Micah Shemaiah, and veterans like Oku Onuora and Kiddus I, while 
mentoring next-generation selectors such as Yaadcore. Occupying a unique 
space in a city starkly divided by class, ethnic origin, political 
affiliation and religious faith, the Kingston Dub Club is a haven for 
locals and visitors alike, and although Selassie has faced repressive 
police action, ostensibly for noise issues, he has kept the Dub Club 
going in the present era of restrictions, operating Covid-secure 
socially-distanced Sunday sessions.


SSO #7 is a collaboration between Sound System Outernationaland Sonic 
Street Technologies (SST). SST(SST) is an ERC funded researchproject 
(2021 – 2025) examining the culture, diaspora and knowledges of 
subaltern and Global South uses of sound technologies. Jamaican sound 
systems, Brazilian aparelhagem, Mexican soniderosand Colombian los picos 
provide good examples. The project aims to map the distribution and 
history of these SST worldwide; to investigate the social, economic and 
cultural conditions from which they are born; and to achieve a deeper 
understanding of the nature of technology itself and its uses for social 
and economic progress. SST adopts a practice-as-research methodology as 
a respect for the knowledge embodied in current sound system and similar 
street cultures and to help build capacities for their autonomous 
development.


SSO #7 Call for Participation:

Send a  proposal of not more than 300 words by 3 May to 
(soundsystemouternational /at/ gmail.com) accompanied by a short bio (100 words)
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