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Theme: 6. Using the Arts, Media and Culture: Contestations and Collaborations
David Novak
University of California - Santa Barbara, United States
Rizky Mohammad Sasono
University of Pittsburgh, United States
David Novak
University of California - Santa Barbara, United States
Rizky Mohammad Sasono
University of Pittsburgh, United States
Nuraini Juliastuti
Reading Sideways Press, Netherlands
Wok The Rock
Yes No Wave/Jogja Sonic Index, Indonesia
Andrew Weintraub
University of Pittsburgh, United States
Otto Stuparitz
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Gerry Apriryan
Irama Nusantara, Indonesia
Roundtable Abstract:
Sound Heritage in Indonesia
How can the notion of heritage, both in the sense of cultural inheritance and as a designation of historical significance, be applied to the seemly ephemeral resonances of sound? Considering sound as a core material of Indonesian heritage raises a complex set of questions. While certain traditions of Indonesian music and dance performance have become famous around the world, what is the role of the commercial history of recordings in Indonesia’s sound heritage? What happens when we consider the fast-changing cycles of popular music and daily experiences of listening as artifacts of national culture? How do contemporary Indonesian publics make sense of post-independence popular music scenes, and create new histories out of informal collections of recordings, texts, and images? And how do sound archives, art collectives, and music researchers recontextualize materials of popular music and sound by providing digital and public-facing resources for engaged listeners?
The participants in this roundtable gather a wide range of musical reference points and sonic materials in their diverse careers and research trajectories, as academics, activists, archivists and artists. Their work includes the formation of web-based archives such as Irama Nusantara and Jogja Sonic Index, both of which have created online libraries of digitized text, vinyl and cassettes that provide access to historical recordings of Indonesian popular music, both mainstream and underground. Presenters research liner notes for foreign reissues of Indonesian popular music on Soundways and Elevation Music, develop long-ranging projects around historical collections of jazz in Java, and study the museumization of national music industries in sites such as the Lokananta studios in Surakarta. Others describe emergent archives of alternative cultural production and develop collective platforms for community knowledge, and explore the way that local sounds become cultural signifiers for independent music publics that stretch from Makassar to Bandung and beyond. In doing so, the panelists seek to expand the resonance of sound heritage as a functional mode of cultural education, artistic enrichment, and intellectual inquiry by listening to Indonesian social and political histories.