Julian Henriques - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Julian Henriques

Knots & Donuts sound sculpture performance at Tate Modern, part of the Topology series (19-20.11.... more Knots & Donuts sound sculpture performance at Tate Modern, part of the Topology series (19-20.11.11), was a 7-performance ticketed event. It was also installed at Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi, 22-29.03.2013 and at Rutgers, Caribbean Sounds conference, 26.04.2013, and discussed in J. Henriques, “Hearing Things and Dancing Numbers” Theory, Culture & Society, 29 (4/5) 334 -342 (2012). The research aim of the sculpture is to provide qualitative evidence, in the form of listeners’ questions and written comments, on how auditory shapes and images are recognized in the “mind’s ear.” This is a practical way of testing some of the ideas and research findings on the Jamaican reggae dancehall music scene, reported in Sonic Bodies. Both book and sculpture are concerned with embodied, and often tacit, ways of knowing, such as techné and phronēsis, as distinct from formal epistemologies. Ways of knowing derived from auditory – rather than visual – sensation provide particula...

“Musicking” entry in Lesko Nancy & Talburt, Susan (Eds). 2011. Keywords in Youth Studies: Tra... more “Musicking” entry in Lesko Nancy & Talburt, Susan (Eds). 2011. Keywords in Youth Studies: Tracing Affects, Movements, Knowledges, New York: RoutledgeFalmer http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415874120

Rhythm and Critique

This chapter explores the appeal of rhythm and algorithm; rhythm in rhythmanalysis and algorithm ... more This chapter explores the appeal of rhythm and algorithm; rhythm in rhythmanalysis and algorithm in pattern of life analysis and AI. It compares the origins of rhythm in ancient Greek thought via Benveniste and more recently Pascal Michon with the origins of algorithm in 10th century Persian thought and the work of Algoritmi who gave the term its name. It identifies the common conversion process of two concepts: quantities into qualities, measure into number and mathematics into geometry. It then names ‘algorithmanalysis’ (as distinct from the analysis of algorithms) as this process of recoding data as pattern, in contrast to quantization that encodes the patterning of continuous analogue variation as digital data. Finally the chapter considers three areas in which algorithmanalysis has been put to use in the commercial world predicting consumer buying and other behaviours, in the political world by identifying particular groups of UK voters via social media, and in warfare for targ...

The Jamaican belief system of Rastafari provides a striking example of a “minor” cosmopolitanism,... more The Jamaican belief system of Rastafari provides a striking example of a “minor” cosmopolitanism, especially in the ways this has found expression in global distribution of reggae music and the street technology of the sound system. Indeed the music and the phonographic instrument of the sound system embody several of the key features of an alternate, subaltern, base/ bass, black cosmopolitanism. This should be recognised as a living breathing challenge to the dominant cosmopolitanism that excludes the vast majority of humanity. This chapter, as a conversation with Zairong Xiang plays on/ off the differences of minor and major keys, scales and the hierarchies of micro and macro cosmoses. Thinking through the vibrations of sounding provides a counter-narrative to the dominant Enlightenment ocularcentrism, just as auditory propagation and diffusion can be used to displace the panoptical Gaze. As the “outernational” displaces the international, so diasporic does the cosmopolitan. In this manner the creativity and “livity” of the narrow street of the ghetto, casaba or favela undermine the wide-open boulevards of the Parisian and other metropolises. Similarly the collective, shared, creolized, indigenised and hacked popular street technology of the sound system interferes with the hermetically-sealed privately-owned consumer corporate product. Most importantly, the embodied techniques, practices and ways-of-knowing of the sound system audio engineers and crew provide the basis of a critique not only of the hegemony of epistemic knowledge, but also its concomitant ideology of progress

Academic conversation between a performance studies and sound studies scholar on 'call and re... more Academic conversation between a performance studies and sound studies scholar on 'call and response'. This conversation was recorded on 29.06.2020.

Changing the Subject, 2003

It hits you, but you feel no pain, instead, pleasure. This is the visceral experience of audition... more It hits you, but you feel no pain, instead, pleasure. This is the visceral experience of audition, to be immersed in an auditory volume, swimming in a sea of sound, between cliffs of speakers towering almost to the sky, sound stacked up upon sound tweeters on top of horns, on top of mid, on top of bass, on top of walk-in sub bass bins (Frontispiece). There is no escape, not even thinking about it, just being there alive to, in and as the excess of sound. Trouser legs flap to the base line and internal organs resonate to the finely tuned frequencies, as the vibrations of the music excite every cell in your body. This is what I call sonic dominance. This explodes with all the multi sensory intensity of image, touch, movement and smell the dance crews formations sashaying across the tarmac in front of the camera lights, the video projection screens and the scent of beer rum, weed, sweat and drum chicken floating on the tropical air. The sound of the reggae dancehall session calls out a...

The Caribbean has long been considered a melting pot of Old and New Worlds. Writer, director, and... more The Caribbean has long been considered a melting pot of Old and New Worlds. Writer, director, and cultural researcher Julian Henriques looks at the Jamaican reggae dancehall sound system to explore how this street technology has found creolizing ways to prevail in the neocolonial power struggle between popular culture and Jamaica’s ruling elite

Edited by Julian Henriques and David Morley with Vana Goblot Stuart Hall: Conversations, Projects... more Edited by Julian Henriques and David Morley with Vana Goblot Stuart Hall: Conversations, Projects and Legacies examines the career of the cultural studies pioneer, interrogating his influence and revealing lesser-known facets of his work. This collection of essays and photographs evaluates the legacies of his particular brand of cultural studies and demonstrates how other scholars and activists have utilised his thinking in their own research. Throughout these pages, Hall's colleagues and long-term collaborators assess his theoretical and methodological standpoints, his commitment to the development of a flexible form of revisionist Marxism, and the contributions of his specific mode of analysis to public debates on Thatcherism, neoliberalism and multiculturalism. North American activist Angela Davis argues that the model of politics, ideology, and race initially developed by Hall and his colleagues in Birmingham continues to resonate when applied to America’s racialized policin...

first para Notting Hill Carnival is undeniably a spectacular event with the flamboyant costumes o... more first para Notting Hill Carnival is undeniably a spectacular event with the flamboyant costumes of dancing mas bands, the splashes of colourful body paint, mud or chocolate staining the bodies of its J’Ouvert opening parade’s revelers. But Carnival also has an explosive auditory impact due to its cacophony of sounds, in which soca, steel bands, calypso and static sound-systems mix and mingle in a multi-media and multi-sensory event. Traditionally the ‘five arts’ of Carnival are soca, steel bands, calypso and sound- systems, together with the mas bands.1 This chapter explores Carnival’s irreducible heterogeneities and poly-vocalities as a unique phenomenon, contribution and expression of British cultural life and the country’s musical landscape.

This article takes its name and inspiration from Mad Professor’s album A Caribbean Taste of Techn... more This article takes its name and inspiration from Mad Professor’s album A Caribbean Taste of Technology in response to the theme of this Technosphere issue. This makes a good place to start a discussion of creolization and technology – the dub reggae tracks of this album produced British producer Mad Professor and released in 1985, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewDTHfJqLwI So what I present here is a text and ideas version of the album as it were.

The reggae sound system has exerted a major influence on music and popular culture. Out on the st... more The reggae sound system has exerted a major influence on music and popular culture. Out on the streets of inner city Kingston, Jamaica, every night, sound systems stage dancehall sessions for the crowd to share the immediate, intensive and immersive visceral pleasures of sonic dominance. Sonic Bodies concentrates on the skilled performance of the crewmembers responsible for this signature sound of Jamaican music: the audio engineers designing, building and fine-tuning the hugely powerful "sets" of equipment; the selectors choosing the music tracks to play; and MCs(DJs) on the mic hyping up the crowd. Julian Henriques proposes that these dancehall "vibes" are taken literally as the periodic motion of vibrations. He offers an analysis of how a sound system operates - at auditory, corporeal and sociocultural frequencies. Sonic Bodies formulates a fascinating critique of visual dominance and the dualities inherent in ideas of image, text or discourse. This innovative...

Revista ECO-Pós, 2020

Este texto marca o início do interesse acadêmico de Julian Henriques pela temática dos sound syst... more Este texto marca o início do interesse acadêmico de Julian Henriques pela temática dos sound systems de reggae e aponta muitos dos interesses que desenvolverá mais tarde. Inclui, então, passagens descritivas da cena do reggae no estilo dancehall na Jamaica de duas décadas atrás, focalizando os engenheiros de som que constroem e operam as aparelhagens; considerações sobre o sonoro em relação a outros estímulos sensórios, sobretudo visuais; música e som; o conceito de “dominância sônica”, que propõe para descrever a presença forte do som em festas, bailes ou “sessões” de reggae; e a relação desta com o corpo do público.

Changing the Subject, 1998

Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 2014

This essay takes off from Tavia Nyong’o’s “Afro-philo-sonic Fictions” to make a journey into the ... more This essay takes off from Tavia Nyong’o’s “Afro-philo-sonic Fictions” to make a journey into the embodiment of sounding through the dread body. It starts with Prince Buster’s Judge Dread persona and Rastafarianism rather than the sonic bodies of the bashment gal in the setting of the dancehall. It traces the dread body through the sounding of the single-multiple of the “I and I” and the dread for the Old Testament god of Jehovah, or Jah. Dread doubles and troubles. It is inflected and inflicted in two directions. One is dread of authority—whether the Greek god Apollo or Judge Dread. The other is for the “sufferah” for the forbearance of that authority. Sounding also doubles, echoes, and reverberates as a vessel for understanding embodiment, not only the particularities of the “Afro-philo-sonic fiction” of a Jamaican Rastafarianism but also the fundamental fissure of the Western philosophical “fiction,” that is, the dichotomy of mind and body, energy, and matter, or subject and object. In the dancehalls and as the first commodities in the cargoholds of the Atlantic slave ships, sonic bodies are restorative, disruptive, and procreative, accounting in part for why they are considered dread.