Notes from the Field

Early in the process of sorting out who would write what, Alejandro and I agreed that we would not identify exactly where we encountered the badly damaged document that is our starting place for our linked essays. (His essay explains why we decline to do this).

This article was originally written in April 2016.

In October 2016, I went to Thailand to gather sounds through field recording in order to compose a soundscape with sound artist Samuel Gouttenoire. This project was part of Le Festival de l’Imaginaire (Paris), organized by La Maison des Cultures du Monde.

An Arabic translation of this article can be found here.

Preliminary fieldwork observations from Yogyakarta:

The city of Yogyakarta in Indonesia is well known for its artistic culture, great universities, and an impressive array of important historical sites and museums that annually attracts millions of visitors and tourists from around the world.

As I lay drifting to sleep in my hotel room, I heard a groan, an exasperated sound of tension releasing, eeeoowwwhh. Rousted from my hypnagogic state, I felt a jolt of adrenaline as the vibrational frequencies stimulated my sympathetic nervous system.

On January 26, my fieldwork in Santiago, Chile took an unforgettable turn when I took to the patio of a shared artists’ house to perform a set of improvised music with three Chilean jazz musicians. This concert came about as part of a transnational collective effort among Chilean jazz aficionados, a Danish web startup company, and my own network of family, friends, and fellow music lovers.

Airports fall into what Marc Augé has defined as a "non-place." Augé's term refers to anthropological spaces of transience that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places". Other "non-places" include highways, hotel rooms, supermarkets, train stations, and bus terminals.

"I, Ethnographer (Part 1): A Reflection on Being (in) the Field," was published in April, 2015.

Sounds of Plurality and Solidarity in Istanbul at the 100^th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide 

^{(Photo: "Where were you, God?" Armenian graffiti in Kurtuluş, Istanbul)}