On alternate Saturdays in the months of April and May 2009, the nine members of the sound art collective Ultra-red convened the Raven Row Sessions of their 'School of Echoes' project. Sixteen participants from different political and local contexts entered into these analytic, pedagogical and recording sessions in order to explore how sound, composition and organized listening might contribute to collective analysis and action.
The protocols for the fives Sessions – facilitated under the headings of Silence, Thematic Investigation, Sound Object, Sound Walk, and Organised Listening – guided participants and Ultra-red through acts of deep listening, dialogue, and site-specific encounters. Across these actions the group experienced and reflected upon ways of being together. The protocols were informed by Ultra-red's many investigations into the political conditions of the AIDS crisis, social housing, the struggles of migration, and anti-racism and incorporate lessons from a range of radical traditions, including Paulo Freire's thematic investigation, popular education, militant inquiry and others. Participants inflected, challenged and re-worked these protocols according to their own commitments.
Raven Row Sessions participants
Sarbaz Ahmed
Gabriella Alberti
Nelly Alfandari
Camille Barbagalo
William Crisp
Lucie Galand
Andrea Giulivi
Gavin Grindon
Chris Jones
Fozia Khaliq
Anna Kontopoulou
Robbie Lockwood
Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre
Rashmi Munikempanna
Francesco Salvini
Paul Swann
Click here to download the original call for applicants for the Raven Row Sessions.
About Ultra-red
Founded fifteen years ago in Los Angeles, Ultra-red conduct Militant Sound Investigations alongside social justice movements where sound is both the medium and the site of the investigation. While the image serves as the foundation for much of our understanding of activist art, Ultra-red turn the focus to the ear: the sound of communities organising themselves, the acoustics of spaces of dissent, the demands and desires in our voices and in our silences, and the echoes of historical memories of struggle. These investigations take the form of audio recordings, art exhibitions, performances, or simple walking tours. The nine members of Ultra-red work with organisations such as Rural Racism Project (Devon, UK), the autonomous community development organisation Union de Vecinos (Los Angeles), the German anti-racist network Kanak Attak, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilisation Project (New York/Los Angeles), and Woodcraft Rangers which facilitates education programmes in sixty-one schools in Los Angeles County.
GUIDE N° 1:
I do like the way they’ve exhibited the museum collections. Historical reconstructions have been set apart. The first room is full of magnificent charts showing how they were constructed. Large diagrams composed of perfectly arranged geometric shapes have been painted side by side on the walls. On closer inspection you can see they’ve used a colour coding system corresponding to each time period.
GUIDE N° 2:
In the second room a dramatic lighting scheme accentuates and offsets the archeological artefacts. The spectator, in semi-darkness, can reconstruct an historic period by operating the lights. If the first light is switched on, you are in the 8th century. Turning on the second switch suddenly throws you into the 5th century. In this way you can be transported from one century to the next, at the whim of the coloured lights. This simple arrangement therefore allows you, in a sense, to time travel.
– Excerpt from the scenario of A recess and a reconstruction
During our residency at Raven Row, we will be preparing the project A recess and a reconstruction. This involves an 8mm film and a performance. We’ll try using archeological methods to explore 18th century gothic novels. We will unpack artefacts in the storage facilities of museums. We will interview scientists, and we will crawl into crypts. We‘ll learn more about the basement of Raven Row. Our performance will take place in July, and there will be medieval music.
About I. I. I. I.
The International Institute for Important Items is an administrative platform, which allows us – the two of us have been working together for more than eight years – to devise a range of projects that relate to this kind of archaeological reasoning. These projects mainly result in performances during which we accumulate documents, literary references and objects. These elements are only linked by what we say. The performances have come to be accompanied by historical reconstructions.
For a few years, we have also been writing and directing films, mainly fictions, which are closely linked to these performances. These films, in their turn, have originated a new series of performances, which explore elements and situations related to showing film, such as trailers, cine-club debates, or DVD special features.
By weaving historical facts, autobiographical data, or excerpts from science fiction films or educational books, we think up fictions and stories that, in a way, allow us to try comprehending coincidences, in the past (and in the future).
Chloé Maillet and Louise Hervé