THE “FLOATING HERSTORIES” SOUND PROJECT: A HELICAL COLLABORATIVE PROCESS
Keywords:
Trinidad & Tobago, seashell, audio-electronics, orality, art-anthropology, morphology, womenAbstract
This article describes the sound project “Floating Herstories” in all its levels: from its conception and development, to its trial in the field on the island of Trinidad, in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies. Inspired by the childhood experience of hearing a shell on Caribbean seashores, this sound work uses seashells as the medium to transmit stories narrated by women authors from Trinidad. Co-written by two authors, this article describes the multidisciplinary construction of the project, involving the participation of the three narrators of the soundtrack. Following a situated heritage of storytelling, “Floating Herstories” aims to tell stories collected poetically by the Caribbean Sea. The trial with the finished prototype conveyed the reactions of the population in situ, from which we gathered some meanings concerning the experience of both telling a story and listening to one. On this basis, the article sets out some questions about the value of silence and selected sound in a familiar or estranged context.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
A u s t i n J. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
B a c k L. 2007. The Art of Listening, Oxford: Berg Publishers.
B a r t h e l a t F., R i m J. E., and E s p i n o s a H.D. 2009. “A review on the structure and mechanical
properties of mollusk shells – perspectives on synthetic biomimetic materials”. In B. Bhushan
and H. Fuchs (eds.) Applied Scanning Probe Methods XIII: Biomimetics and Industrial Applications..
Berlin: Springer, 17–44.
B a t a i l l e G. 1994. Visions of Excess, selected writings 1927–1938. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
B e n í t e z -R o j o A. 2001. “Introduction: the repeating island.” In The Repeating Island, Durham:
Duke University Press, 1–32.
B h a b h a H. K. 1996. “Culture’s in-between”. In S. Hall and P. Du Gay (eds.), Questions of Cultural
Identity. London: Sage Publications, 53–60.
B r o w n L-A. 2018. Decolonial Daughter. Letters from a Black Woman to Her European Son.
London: Repeater.
B u c z k o w s k i A., and B o r o n S. 2019. ViaNet Conchology. ViaNet Blog. URL:
http://vianetconchology.com (accessed 28/11/2019)
C a m b r i d g e D i c t i o n a r y , s.v. 2019. Exoticism Definition in English. URL:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exoticism (accessed 27/11/2019).
C a m b r i d g e D i c t i o n a r y , s.v. 2019. Reverberate Definition in English. URL:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/reverberate. (accessed 28/11/2019).
C a r r i t h e r s M., C o l l i n s S. and L u k e s S. (eds.) The Category of the Person. Anthropology,
Philosophy,
History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–25.
C h o u r m o u z i a d o u K., and K a n g J. 2008. “Acoustic evolution of ancient Greek and Roman
theatres”. Applied Acoustics 69, 514–529.
C u l j a t M. O., G o l d e n b e r g D. and Te w a r i P., S i n g h R. S. 2010. “A review of tissue substitutes
for ultrasound imaging”. Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology 36 (6), 861–873.
De b n a t h L. 2011. “A short history of the Fibonacci and golden numbers with their applications”.
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology 42 (3), 337–367.
D F R o b o t . 2019. DFPlayer Mini SKU DFR0299. Sensors & Modules. URL:
https://wiki.dfrobot.com/DFPlayer_Mini_SKU_DFR0299. (accessed 28/11/2019)
E v e r e s t F. A. and P o h l m a n n C. K. 2009. Master Handbook of Acoustics. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
F l e t c h e r R. 2006. The Golden section. Nexus Network Journal 8 (1), 67–89.
G i l b e r t H. and To m p k i n s J. 1996. “Traditional enactments: ritual and carnival story telling.”
In Post-Colonial Drama. Theory, Practice, Politics, London: Routledge, 78–106; 126–137.
G o f f m a n E. [1959] 1969. La Vita Quotidiana come Rappresentazione. [The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life]. Translated by Margherita Ciacci, Bologna: Il Mulino.
G o r d o n R. 2004. “I Lawa. The construction of masculinity in Trinidad and Tobago Calypso”.
In R. E. Reddock (ed.), Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities. Theoretical and Empirical Analyses.
Kingston: University of the West Indies Press.
G u g o l a t i M. 2018. PhD Thesis. Pretty Mas’, Visuality and Performance in Trinidad and Tobago’s
Contemporary Carnival, West Indies. EHESS Paris, PSL Universities, France.
Gu t i e r r e z J. L., C l i v e G. J., S t r a y e r D. L., and I r i b a r n e O. O. 2003. “Mollusks as ecosystem
engineers: the role of shell production in aquatic habitats”. Oikos 101 (1), 79–90.
Gr i m s h a w A. and R a v e t z A. 2015. “The ethnographic turn – and after: a critical approach towards
the realignment of art and anthropology”. European Association of Social Anthropologists. Social
Anthropology 23 (04), 418–434.
He n r i q u e s J. 2011. Sonic Bodies, Reggae Sound Systems, Performance Techniques, and Ways of Knowing.
New York: Continuum, 1–18.
Ho l l i s M. 1985. “Of masks and men”. In M. Carrithers, S. Collins and S. Lukes (eds) The Category of
the Person, Anthropology Philosophy, History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 217–233.
Hu g g i n s S. 2016. “The curators of cultural tradition: storytelling activities of the National Library
of Trinidad and Tobago”. Storytelling, Self, Society, 12 (1), Storytelling in Libraries, 66–80
J i a n g LT., Sm i t h J. R. 2012. “Seashell effect. Pretouch sensing for robotic grasping”. In 2012 IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2851–2858. St Paul, MN, USA: IEEE.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6224985/, (accessed 29/11/2019)
L e B r e t o n D. 2017. Sensing the World. An Anthropology of the Senses. New York: Bloomsbury.
Ma u s s M. 1985. “A category of the human mind: the notion of person; the notion of self ”.
In M. Carrithers, S. Collins and S. Lukes (eds.), The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy,
History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–25.
Me r r i a m -We b s t e r Di c t i o n a r y , s.v. 2019. Note 1. Dialectic: Logic Through Conversation.
“Dialogue” Definition. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialogue#note-1. (accessed
12/08/2019).
Mo l l u s c a B a s e . 2019. MolluscaBase. http://www.molluscabase.org (accessed 18/10/2019).
Mu ñ o z J. E. 1999. Disidentifications. Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Ol i v e r o s P. 2011. “Auralizing in the Sonosphere: A Vocabulary for Inner Sound and Sounding”.
Journal of visual culture 10 (2), 162–168.
P e r s a u d D., O ’ L e a r y JP. 2015. “Fibonacci series, golden proportions, and the human biology”.
Austin J Surg 2 (5). 1066.
P o r t e l l i A. 2005. “A dialogical relationship. An approach to oral history”. Expressions Annual 14, 1–8.
P o u r a g h d a m R. M. 2016. PhD Thesis. Numerical Analysis and Experiments on the Acoustics of Conch
Shells Modelled as Spiral Cavities, 81.
S a s a n k a P. and P a t h a k D. N. 2019. Intersections and implications: when anthropology, art practice,
and art history converge. In Intersections of Contemporary Art, Anthropology and Art History in
South Asia Decoding Visual Worlds, 1–47.
S c h a e f f n e r A. 1931. Projet d’une classification nouvelle des instruments de musique. Bulletin du
Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro 1, 21–25.
S c h n e i d e r A. and Wr i g h t C. 2010. Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic
Practice. New York: Berg.
S c h n e i d e r A. and Wr i g h t C . 2013. Anthropology and art practice. New York: Bloomsbury.
S c h n e i d e r A. 2017. Alternative Art and Anthropology: Global Encounters. New York: Bloomsbury.
S p i v a k G. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? In Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds) Marxism and
the Interpretation of Culture, London: Macmillan.
S t i p a n c i c -K l a i c I., and M a t o t e k J. 2010. The Golden Ratio. Kyoto: University of Osijek.
T h omp s o n K., 2007. An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography and Framing the Caribbean. Durham:
Duke University Press.
Tu h i w a i S m i t h L. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies. Research and Indigenous People, London: Zed
Books.
Ve r m e i j G.J. 1993. A Natural History of Shells. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vo e g e l i n S. 2010. Listening to Noise and Silence. Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art, New York:
Bloomsbury.
Vo e g e l i n S. 2014. Sonic Possible Worlds. Hearing the Continuum of Sound. New York: Bloomsbury.
Mo v i e s :
1983. Rue Cases Nègres. Directed by Euzhan Palcy, FR.
2011. The Story of Lovers Rock. Directed by Menelik Shabazz. UK.
2011. Calypso Rose: Lioness of The Jungle. Directed by Pascale Obolo. FR.
B a c k L. 2007. The Art of Listening, Oxford: Berg Publishers.
B a r t h e l a t F., R i m J. E., and E s p i n o s a H.D. 2009. “A review on the structure and mechanical
properties of mollusk shells – perspectives on synthetic biomimetic materials”. In B. Bhushan
and H. Fuchs (eds.) Applied Scanning Probe Methods XIII: Biomimetics and Industrial Applications..
Berlin: Springer, 17–44.
B a t a i l l e G. 1994. Visions of Excess, selected writings 1927–1938. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
B e n í t e z -R o j o A. 2001. “Introduction: the repeating island.” In The Repeating Island, Durham:
Duke University Press, 1–32.
B h a b h a H. K. 1996. “Culture’s in-between”. In S. Hall and P. Du Gay (eds.), Questions of Cultural
Identity. London: Sage Publications, 53–60.
B r o w n L-A. 2018. Decolonial Daughter. Letters from a Black Woman to Her European Son.
London: Repeater.
B u c z k o w s k i A., and B o r o n S. 2019. ViaNet Conchology. ViaNet Blog. URL:
http://vianetconchology.com (accessed 28/11/2019)
C a m b r i d g e D i c t i o n a r y , s.v. 2019. Exoticism Definition in English. URL:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exoticism (accessed 27/11/2019).
C a m b r i d g e D i c t i o n a r y , s.v. 2019. Reverberate Definition in English. URL:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/reverberate. (accessed 28/11/2019).
C a r r i t h e r s M., C o l l i n s S. and L u k e s S. (eds.) The Category of the Person. Anthropology,
Philosophy,
History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–25.
C h o u r m o u z i a d o u K., and K a n g J. 2008. “Acoustic evolution of ancient Greek and Roman
theatres”. Applied Acoustics 69, 514–529.
C u l j a t M. O., G o l d e n b e r g D. and Te w a r i P., S i n g h R. S. 2010. “A review of tissue substitutes
for ultrasound imaging”. Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology 36 (6), 861–873.
De b n a t h L. 2011. “A short history of the Fibonacci and golden numbers with their applications”.
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology 42 (3), 337–367.
D F R o b o t . 2019. DFPlayer Mini SKU DFR0299. Sensors & Modules. URL:
https://wiki.dfrobot.com/DFPlayer_Mini_SKU_DFR0299. (accessed 28/11/2019)
E v e r e s t F. A. and P o h l m a n n C. K. 2009. Master Handbook of Acoustics. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
F l e t c h e r R. 2006. The Golden section. Nexus Network Journal 8 (1), 67–89.
G i l b e r t H. and To m p k i n s J. 1996. “Traditional enactments: ritual and carnival story telling.”
In Post-Colonial Drama. Theory, Practice, Politics, London: Routledge, 78–106; 126–137.
G o f f m a n E. [1959] 1969. La Vita Quotidiana come Rappresentazione. [The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life]. Translated by Margherita Ciacci, Bologna: Il Mulino.
G o r d o n R. 2004. “I Lawa. The construction of masculinity in Trinidad and Tobago Calypso”.
In R. E. Reddock (ed.), Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities. Theoretical and Empirical Analyses.
Kingston: University of the West Indies Press.
G u g o l a t i M. 2018. PhD Thesis. Pretty Mas’, Visuality and Performance in Trinidad and Tobago’s
Contemporary Carnival, West Indies. EHESS Paris, PSL Universities, France.
Gu t i e r r e z J. L., C l i v e G. J., S t r a y e r D. L., and I r i b a r n e O. O. 2003. “Mollusks as ecosystem
engineers: the role of shell production in aquatic habitats”. Oikos 101 (1), 79–90.
Gr i m s h a w A. and R a v e t z A. 2015. “The ethnographic turn – and after: a critical approach towards
the realignment of art and anthropology”. European Association of Social Anthropologists. Social
Anthropology 23 (04), 418–434.
He n r i q u e s J. 2011. Sonic Bodies, Reggae Sound Systems, Performance Techniques, and Ways of Knowing.
New York: Continuum, 1–18.
Ho l l i s M. 1985. “Of masks and men”. In M. Carrithers, S. Collins and S. Lukes (eds) The Category of
the Person, Anthropology Philosophy, History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 217–233.
Hu g g i n s S. 2016. “The curators of cultural tradition: storytelling activities of the National Library
of Trinidad and Tobago”. Storytelling, Self, Society, 12 (1), Storytelling in Libraries, 66–80
J i a n g LT., Sm i t h J. R. 2012. “Seashell effect. Pretouch sensing for robotic grasping”. In 2012 IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2851–2858. St Paul, MN, USA: IEEE.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6224985/, (accessed 29/11/2019)
L e B r e t o n D. 2017. Sensing the World. An Anthropology of the Senses. New York: Bloomsbury.
Ma u s s M. 1985. “A category of the human mind: the notion of person; the notion of self ”.
In M. Carrithers, S. Collins and S. Lukes (eds.), The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy,
History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–25.
Me r r i a m -We b s t e r Di c t i o n a r y , s.v. 2019. Note 1. Dialectic: Logic Through Conversation.
“Dialogue” Definition. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialogue#note-1. (accessed
12/08/2019).
Mo l l u s c a B a s e . 2019. MolluscaBase. http://www.molluscabase.org (accessed 18/10/2019).
Mu ñ o z J. E. 1999. Disidentifications. Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Ol i v e r o s P. 2011. “Auralizing in the Sonosphere: A Vocabulary for Inner Sound and Sounding”.
Journal of visual culture 10 (2), 162–168.
P e r s a u d D., O ’ L e a r y JP. 2015. “Fibonacci series, golden proportions, and the human biology”.
Austin J Surg 2 (5). 1066.
P o r t e l l i A. 2005. “A dialogical relationship. An approach to oral history”. Expressions Annual 14, 1–8.
P o u r a g h d a m R. M. 2016. PhD Thesis. Numerical Analysis and Experiments on the Acoustics of Conch
Shells Modelled as Spiral Cavities, 81.
S a s a n k a P. and P a t h a k D. N. 2019. Intersections and implications: when anthropology, art practice,
and art history converge. In Intersections of Contemporary Art, Anthropology and Art History in
South Asia Decoding Visual Worlds, 1–47.
S c h a e f f n e r A. 1931. Projet d’une classification nouvelle des instruments de musique. Bulletin du
Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro 1, 21–25.
S c h n e i d e r A. and Wr i g h t C. 2010. Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic
Practice. New York: Berg.
S c h n e i d e r A. and Wr i g h t C . 2013. Anthropology and art practice. New York: Bloomsbury.
S c h n e i d e r A. 2017. Alternative Art and Anthropology: Global Encounters. New York: Bloomsbury.
S p i v a k G. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? In Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds) Marxism and
the Interpretation of Culture, London: Macmillan.
S t i p a n c i c -K l a i c I., and M a t o t e k J. 2010. The Golden Ratio. Kyoto: University of Osijek.
T h omp s o n K., 2007. An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography and Framing the Caribbean. Durham:
Duke University Press.
Tu h i w a i S m i t h L. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies. Research and Indigenous People, London: Zed
Books.
Ve r m e i j G.J. 1993. A Natural History of Shells. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vo e g e l i n S. 2010. Listening to Noise and Silence. Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art, New York:
Bloomsbury.
Vo e g e l i n S. 2014. Sonic Possible Worlds. Hearing the Continuum of Sound. New York: Bloomsbury.
Mo v i e s :
1983. Rue Cases Nègres. Directed by Euzhan Palcy, FR.
2011. The Story of Lovers Rock. Directed by Menelik Shabazz. UK.
2011. Calypso Rose: Lioness of The Jungle. Directed by Pascale Obolo. FR.
Downloads
Published
2019-12-03
How to Cite
Gugolati, M., & Ramirez, J. E. (2019). THE “FLOATING HERSTORIES” SOUND PROJECT: A HELICAL COLLABORATIVE PROCESS. Ethnologia Polona, 39, 51–69. Retrieved from https://journals.iaepan.pl/ethp/article/view/2003
Issue
Section
Main topic of the issue
