JENDELA SONORAMA

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ABOUT

Jendela Sonorama is a communal listening and lecture-performance series developed in 2020 by Ariel Orah and Pedro Oliveira in collaboration with LK_W and Soydivision. In each session we host and present listening as a form of collective sharing and learning. Starting from but not constrained to our own personal record collections and research interests, we unpack affective sonic histories that deal, subtly or not, with the (often violent) devices, legacies, and complexities of colonialism. By understanding record collections as historical documents of a specific snippet of one's own identity, the sessions become improvised collages between existing material – songs and field recordings – and improvised, real-time creation responding to these materials. With that, it also blurs the idea of new music performance and DJ set, rejecting any well-defined point of entry or exit.

Questions that drive Jendela Sonorama are:
Where do we find the sound of border identities, of new modes of existing? How do we find new listenings, and how do we attend to and witness these listenings?

The goal of the sessions is to question the very idea of a “national identity”, establishing a plural and multifaceted South-South dialogue. The series debuted in September 2020 and had six editions so far. We started from the specifics of Portuguese colonialism in Indonesia and Brazil (where we come from) but moved more towards the complexities of diasporic identities, melancholia, activism, and the dream of a “post-migration” world

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V°L

03.09.2020 @ Sari Sari Space
“Sertantifonas“

For the first round, Pedro Oliveira will present “Sertantifonas” (a term coined by Brazilian musician Elomar Figueira Mello), showcasing a couple of records, artists and songs hailing (mostly) from northeastern Brazil that deal, one way or another, with the legacies of christianity in the process of colonization of the Americas, and the forms of musical expression that challenge, contradict, or convey the complexity of this violent process.

21.10.2020 @ Sari Sari Space
“Keroncong”

Keroncong developed from the Fado of the Portuguese people who came to Indonesia in search of spices in the 1500s. One story relates to the loss of the Portuguese to the Dutch made them being transported to Batavia as prisoners. There, during their labor-free time, they performed their music (Moresco song). Another story relates the Portuguese sail to the eastern part of Indonesia. Some of them settled in the northeast of Batavia. Their settlement is called Kampung Tugu (village of the Tugu, i.e., the Portuguese). In their settlement, they performed their music in their free time.

Despite their long history, keroncong gained prominence at the beginning of the 20th century, especially through figures that made it famous and popular: Ismail Marzuki, Gesang, and Kelly Puspito, among others. During its development, it absorbed various musical elements, such as Malay music, Javanese music, etc.

In this session, Ariel Orah would like to invite participants to explore the question of :  Is keroncong another example of syncretism?

Syncretism is typical in Java: an absorption/adaptation of foreign elements into one’s own culture/identity. It absorbs not only European elements but also regional elements (Langgam, Gambang Kromong, Malay song, etc.). What is foreign becomes one’s identity.

24.06.2021 @ WIR WIR Berlin
“#wirbaueneineneuestadt“

Special edition of Jendela Sonorama with an invitation from WIR WIR Exhibition “Wir baauen eine neues stadt”. On this edition Pedro and Ariel did a session in sresponse to exhibition’s title and concentrate on reflection to verious cities that they been living and the story telling that brough surround them. They played also snippets of their own musical responses to these inner migrations, blending songs, memory, and creation.

17.07.2021 @ Uferstudios Berlin
“How can we imagine a post migration world? What does it sound like?”
Jendela #4 reflected on the bureaucratic processes that condition our existence in Germany, while at the same time critically challenging the identities that are bestowed on us (e.g. "migrant", "worker", "Latin American", "South East Asian", etc.)

11.06.2022 @ SAVVY Contemporary 

Part of exhibition project GARDEN OF TEN SEASONS,  curated by Cosmin Costinaș, Sheelasha Rajbhandari, and Hit Man Gurung. LINKJendela #5 focused on the melancholia of colonialism, and used songs as the backdrop for musical interventions and re-composing and creation troubling the comfort of melancholia and the need for different routes

04.08.2022 @ZKU Berlin

“NO MORE MISERABLE IMMIGRATION APPOINTMENTS” 

(Jendela Sonorama #6) - Pedro Oliveira & Ariel Orah In this listening session and live "sound essay" performance, artists Ariel Orah and Pedro Oliveira will dive in and out of a selection of song snippets and musical interludes dealing with the tensions that a desire for "post-migration" futures entail. In attunement with the anger, sadness, and collective joy of Mark Fisher’s original k-punk playlist, Ariel and Pedro will sonically articulate the complexities of border and diasporic identities as they become ways of living and being – here and elsewhere.  

Part of Towards a Shimmer on the Horizon aims to explore steps, practices, thoughts and sounds that could shift consciousness towards post-capitalist desires, that may illuminate new structuring elements of society, that open up wishful imagination, that could give a glimpse of shimmering possibilities

18.11.2022 @Cashmere Radio Berlin

Part of Radical Sounds Latin America 2022

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GLIMPSE

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About the artist

Pedro Oliveira is a researcher, sound artist and educator working with the articulations of listening in the policing of urban and border spaces. He is currently an artist-in-residence at the Max-Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt (Germany) and from 2021 on he will be a Postdoctoral fellow at the Helsinki College for Advanced Studies (Finland). He also makes music under the moniker OLVRA.


Ariel Orah is a Berlin-based Indonesian artist who explores themes related to identity, memory, and scarcity. He fancies the durability of homo sapiens and the fragility of the machines. He is working with a variety of media, ranging from sonic and other multi-sensory performances, physical and interactive installations, and moving and/or still images.  He co-founded an empathy driven artist collective L-KW , Bandung-based progressive rock band “Vincent Vega”, and Indonesian gastronomy initiative SOYDIVISION.BERLIN.  Selected works included commissioned installation for Tanz im August Festival Berlin (2016), film-music scoring for “Deeper High”- Germany (2018), CTM Festival Music Maker Hacklab 2020, solo album “Scarcity” (2017)  and “WIM”  (2018) under alias ravenative.