Singing the Fronde: Placards, Street Songs, and Performed Politics (original) (raw)
Related papers
Space and Culture, 2015
This essay argues that the revolutionary potential of the poster—established by a legacy of the political poster extending back to the French Revolution—and the poster's mode of collective spectatorship made it subject to greater scrutiny, censorship, and public debate in the period after the passage of the 1881 Press Law (loi de press, 29 Juillet, 1881) until 1893 when political propaganda was increasingly repressed following anarchist bombings. Through an examination of archival material and contemporary press articles, the essay analyzes the poster's mode of reception and its political message as having earned its reputation as a subversive object that required surveillance and scrutiny even after its display had been authorized under the 1881 Press Law. Despite these challenges, political activists from 1881 to 1893 were able to disseminate their radical viewpoints through clandestine distribution of posters that represented ephemeral resistance to the Third Republican government.
The paper takes the relation between soundscapes and power struggles as its problem area and focuses on the role of music that is performed in public protests. It argues that music and street performances are conceived and therefore utilised as sonic acts of political struggle in urban realm. Starting with a general understanding of hearing mechanisms, the study elucidates the relationships among territoriality of soundscape, identity construction, social segregation and polarisation, and finally, power struggle. Within the framework of the intersection area of these concepts, the paper discusses the processes of politisation of soundscape through music as a form of protest event that is performed in public realm. Throughout the paper, it is focused on the significant cases of public protests as well as political events that occured in public space. The main emphasis is on the use of sound technologies to impose power on masses of people. The paper tackles the question of how the salient characteristics of soundscape are sonically adopted as means for counter‐political acts in public realm.
From performance to politics? Constructing public and counterpublic in the singing of red songs
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2014
This article uses the conceptual constructs of 'public' and 'counterpublic' to examine the collective singing of 'Red Songs', a state-approved, ideology-laden popular culture, in the city of Guangzhou, China. It approaches these two concepts from actions, practices and shared meanings which render the public/counterpublic visible and concrete. In Guangzhou, the interplays between hegemonic ideas expressed in the red songs and ordinary singers' agency of re-interpreting and re-reading have shaped the fluidity and complexity of the cultural meanings and political discourses in which this grassroots public dwells. Singers do not simply re-assert the post-reform party-state's political legitimacy by expressing political allegiance via red songs, but also creatively reconstruct and re-appropriate the meanings woven into red songs to critically reflect upon the social, cultural and moral transformations, as well as new cultural and ethical zeitgeists in the post-reform context. In the meantime, red song singing is also appropriated by New Leftist activists for cultivating new counterpublic political potentials.
'A soundtrack to the insurrection': street music, marching bands and popular protest
What happens in social movements when people actually move, how does the mobile moment of activism contribute to mobilisation? Are they marching or dancing? How is the space of action, the street itself, altered, re-sounded? The employment of street music in the very specific context of political protest remains a curiously under-researched aspect of cultural politics in social movements.... By looking at the marching bands of different socio- political and cultural contexts, primarily British, I aim to further current understanding of the idea and history of street music itself, as well as explore questions of the construction or repositioning of urban space via 'how the sound of music can alter spaces'; participation, pleasure and the political body; subculture and identity. Bands discussed: * Omega Brass Band of 1950s, and CND marches *northern Irish parade bands, 1970s-, unionist and nationalist parades *Infernal Noise Brigade of 2000s, and anti-capitalism global actions The published article also contains one image, of Ken Colyer's Omega Brass Band at the first Soho Fair, London, c. 1955.
Changing the Tune: popular music and politics in the XXIst century
Volume ! The French journal of popular music studies, Elsa GRASSY, Jedediah Sklower, Naomi Podber, Noriko Manabe, Ana Hofman, Olivier Bourderionnet, Marc Kaiser, alenka barber-kersovan, Bruno Agar, Anthony Kosar
Published: http://www.lespressesdureel.com/ouvrage.php?id=4483&menu=2 "Conference organizers Alenka Barber-Kersovan, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Arbeitskreis Studium Populärer Musik, Germany Elsa Grassy, Université de Strasbourg, International Association for the Study of Popular Music-branche francophone d’Europe, France Jedediah Sklower, Université Catholique de Lille, Éditions Mélanie Seteun / Volume! the French journal of popular music studies, France Keynote speakers Martin Cloonan, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom Dietrich Helms, University of Osnabrück, Germany Provisional scientific committee Ralph von Appen, University of Giessen, Germany Esteban Buch, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France Hugh Dauncey, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom André Doehring, University of Giessen, Germany Gérôme Guibert, University of Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, France Patricia Hall, University of Michigan, United States Olivier Julien, University of Paris IV, Sorbonne, France Dave Laing, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom David Looseley, University of Leeds, United Kingdom Rajko Muršič, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Rosa Reitsamer, University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Austria Deena Weinstein, DePaul University, United States Sheila Whiteley, University of Salford, United Kingdom The Conference Popular Music scholars have devoted considerable attention to the relationship between music and power. The symbolic practices through which subcultures state and reinforce identities have been widely documented (mainly in the field of Cultural, Gender and Postcolonial Studies), as has the increasingly political and revolutionary dimensions of popular music. Most studies have focused on the genres and movements that developed with and in the aftermath of the 1960’s counterculture. Yet little has been written about how the politics of popular music has reflected the social, geopolitical and technological changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, after the fall of Communism. Still, the music of the Arab Spring or of the Occupy and Indignados movements have been scarcely commented upon while they attest to significant changes in the way music is used by activists and revolutionaries today. This international conference therefore aims to explore the new political meanings and practices of music and to provide an impetus for their study. Broadly the themes of the conference are divided into five main streams: 1. Music as a Political Weapon The history of popular music cannot be divorced from that of social, cultural and political movements, and yet the question remains: if music is politically efficient, how can we measure its impact? It is not clear what role music plays in the struggle for political, ideological and social change. While musical practices and the writing of songs can strengthen existing activist groups, can it also truly change minds or upset the established order and destabilize it? If there are such things as soundtracks for rebellions and revolutions, do they merely accompany fights or can they quicken the pace and bring about change themselves? Of course it would be naïve to think of the political impact of music only in progressive terms; participants are encouraged to pinpoint the ambiguities and contradictions at work in the relationship between music and power. Popular music artists and whole genres can refuse to meddle in politics – and the non-referentiality of music makes it an ill-suited medium for the diffusion of clean-cut messages. It would therefore be ill-advised to consider popular music genres and artists as falling either into the political or apolitical categories. Music can also be violent in less political ways, and even carry nihilistic undertones – it can ignore or even mock its own alleged political power. This should lead us to a re-evaluation of subcultural politics. 2. Political Change, Musical Revolution? The Question of Artistic Legacy The musical styles that accompany social and political change are part of a musical continuum. This prompts the question of originality and relation to tradition. Has the new historical context shaken up the old codes for protest music? What are the new politically conscious forms and genres of today, and how do they relate to older protest movements? The covering of songs from the Civil Rights era and the Great Depression in the aftermath of Katrina and the participation of singers from the 1960s counterculture in the Occupy Wall Street movement raises the issue of correspondences between groups of artists and activists. We will also look at how contemporary movements connect with one another. Can it be said that protest music is globalized today? How does the music of the Arab Spring compare to the songs of the Occupy Wall Street movement or of the Maple Spring protesters? 3. Music, Identity and Nationalism Popular music has a hand in the building and solidification of (sub)cultural communities. Songs have expressed the emergence of new group identities in fall of Communism, the breakup of Yugoslavia and during other political schisms in Latin American countries more recently. People sing and play the old regimes away, or they use music to connect with fellow migrants or refugees in an upset political landscape. Songs serve as a bridge between past and present by pairing traditional patterns to new instruments, new technology, and new media – by associating nostalgia with the wish for change. They can also smooth out the transition to a new life and a new identity as individuals and groups assimilate into another culture. Reversely, they can reflect new cultural antagonisms and class conflicts and follow the radicalization of group identities. In the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Russia, nationalist movements have their own anthems, too. 4. Aesthetics, digital practices and political significations The increased use of computing technology in musical practices as well as the advent of social networks has opened new aesthetic vistas (with the increasing use of sampling, mashups, or shreds), as well as changed the way music is shared, advertised and composed. How do those technical changes affect the political uses of music and its weight? Of course while these changes have led to a wave of increased artistic creativity, they might also obliterate symbolic legacies and political meanings. When do reference and reverence turn into betrayal? New technologies might have opened a new battleground where political awareness competes with cultural emancipation. 5. Marching to a Different Beat? Censorship, Propaganda and Torture The political weight and the mobilizing capacities of popular music can be gauged by how authorities react to them. Some states consider them a threat to their stability and to an established order in which the voice of the people is seldom heard – and never listened to. In the 21st century, popular music is still censored and repressed all over the world. From the ban of irreverent songs after 9/11 to the violence directed against emos in Iraq and the trial against Pussy Riot more recently, the regimes contested by deviants and/or protesters can take musical criticism and anticonformist artists very seriously. Political and moral authorities with a sense of how powerful music can be may also use it for their benefit, as propaganda. Soldiers’ moral and psychological states can also be altered by listening to aggressive playlists during military operations. Music is never further away from its role in political struggles than when it is meant to numb the will of individuals, subdue or even torture. This might constitute the most extreme way in which its emancipatory power can be subverted." Schedule Friday 7 June 2013 12:00: Lunch 13:00-13:30: Conference opening, MISHA conference hall: Alenka Barber-Kersovan, Elsa Grassy, Jedediah Sklower 13:30-14:15: Dietrich Helms intervention 14:15 -14:30: Coffee break 14:30-16:00: Panels I 1. The democratic agency of protest music I: music, society & political change 2. Scenes I: the politics of indie music 3. Hijacking popular music I: persuasion & propaganda 16:00-16:15: Coffee break 16:15-17:45: Panels II 4. The democratic agency of protest music II: performing activist soundscapes 5. Scenes II – racial and postcolonial issues in glocal popular music 6. Hijacking popular music II: Star politics, influence & the masses 18:00-20:00: Visit of Strasbourg’s historical center 19:00-20:00: Visit of Strasbourg by “bateau mouche” 20:30: Dinner at the Maison Kammerzell Saturday 8 June 2013 9:30-11:00: Panels III 7. The democratic agency of protest music III: struggling with commitment 8. Scenes III: glocal hip-hop & the politics of authenticity 9. Identity polemics I: assessing the political past 11:00-11:15: Coffee break 11:15-12:45: Panels IV 10. The democratic agency of protest music IV: political movements & strikes 11. Hijacking popular music III: State policies & propaganda 12. Identity polemics II: the polysemic recycling of popular music 12:45-14:30: “Buffet” at the MISHA conference hall, and short concert within the Jazzdor Strasbourg-Berlin festival 14:30-15:15: Martin Cloonan presentation 15:15-15:30: Coffee break 15h30-17:00: Panels V 13. The democratic agency of protest music V: revolutionary soundtracks? 14. Scenes IV: politics, ethics & aesthetics 15. Identity polemics III: tributes & national myths in the United States 17:00-17:15: Coffee break 17:15-18:00: Conference conclusion & debate Abstracts
2014
The People's Microphone technique, first employed by Occupy Wall Street in the 2011 occupation of Zuccotti Park, is a mode of political speech drawing on the fundamental linguistic/musical principle of imitation. By analyzing musical parameters of the tones of voice in instances of the People's Microphone in protest, and secondly by adapting the method to analyze how the People's Microphone is used in an artwork by Brandon LaBelle, I lay the speculative groundwork for a transversal theory dealing with the political influence of musical sound. This theory is extended to Angela Davis, a piece in Peter Ablinger's Voices and Piano series of compositions for piano and audio recording in which the piano exactly imitates the intonations of the voice in different ways. The arousal of cognitive dissonance through vocal inflection in interaction with contexts of perception is the common thread through several examples that allows a holistic theoretical approach across the doma...
Populism, Music and the Media. The Sanremo Festival and the Circulation of Populist Discourses
Partecipazione e Conflitto, 2020
The article has the purpose of expanding the study of the relationship between music and populism in two directions. On a more theoretical level, the article aims at establishing further interconnections between political science, cultural sociology and media studies. On an empirical ground, a primary aim is that of presenting a distinctive case, able to offer an example of how populist discourses could emerge and circulate in relation with music phenomena; this empirical case is represented by the public controversy, anchored on populist references, emerged in Italy during the 2019 Sanremo festival, the most important musical event of the country. What emerges from the analysis is that the circulation of populist discourses in society requires a renewed theoretical sensibility, more able to intercept the role of aesthetic, cultural and symbolic phenomena, as well as a distinctive focus the role digital media technologies in reshaping the collective possibilities to articulate socia...
Re-Volution Sampler – The Aesthetics of a Participatory Archive of Political Songs
2019
This article describes and reflects upon the ReVolution Sampler installation; an exploratory work to investigate how sonic archival material can be disseminated in engaging ways. The ReVolution Sampler is a participatory installation which consist of a multi-layered assemblage of sonic documents. Ten political songs represent a multilingual mix of international, European and local Danish titles from the last decades. Participants can listen to songs and sing along, applaud, cheer or add verbal comments; they can also start new recordings. During an evaluation period of one week at a semi-public location, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to collect data on the installation's engaging properties. We observe lively, shared and constructive interactions; that the participation is at the same time restrained; and that questions of power relationships surface as an essential aspect to navigate. The intended empowering effect of the installation appears uncertain and requires further investigation. Aesthetics. Assemblage. Audio. Engagement of participants. Performing archive. Sound recording.