Multiplicity of Resonant Disruption
2020
Radio Kootwijk, NL
sound installation curated and assembled by Raphael Daibert & Zachary Schoenhut, including works by Mavi Veloso and Ram Botero

.... . .-.. .-.. --- / -. . - .... . .-. .-.. .- -. -.. ... --..-- / -.-. .- -. / -.-- --- ..- / .... . .- .-. / ..- ... ..--..
( Hello Netherlands, can you hear us?)

Multiplicity of Resonant Disruption is a sound installation in 2 acts considering the insurrectionary force of sounds, voices, and reverberating forms of communication of trans and queer individuals across the world.

Though Radio Kootwijk served the Dutch government in the management and continued colonization of Indonesia, the politics of its construction and utilization implicates the larger european colonial project of the East Indies dating from the 16th century. The radio transmitter directly implemented Western technologies of communication and control, strengthening the colonial presence throughout Southeast Asia. Quite literally, the first statement that was ever transmitted via radio waves from Radio Kootwijk was “Hello Bandung, do you hear me?” by Queen Mother Emma in 1929. Immediately, Indonesia was subjugated by a foreign entity through the resounding interpolation of the singular pronoun “me.” On the information website for the Radio Kootwijk, it is noted that the surroundings were chosen for “undisturbed connections.” These surroundings and the colonial history that it holds must be punctured and interrupted, fully unmasked and interrogated.

In “Act I: Cacophony”, the multitude of sonic vibrations form a language of refusal that amplify the marginalized sonic-activist archives of Brazilian artist Mavi Veloso remixed with morse code and sounds of our personal archives. The sonic interplay ruptures the architectural and historical silencing of the space. Mavi’s work includes a multiplicity of transgender women voices from across time and space: Octavia Saint Laurent, Bambola Star Kaxinawá, Lorenza Böttner, Venus Xtravaganza, Pepper Labeija, Jennifer Laude, and others. In Mavi’s own words, “w hen the conventions try to silence us, we cheat. When tradition tries to do harm, we fight. When violence insists on hurting, we resist.”

The moment european powers entered the East Indies, Indonesia and the Philippines were split via the borders and relations of the Spanish, Portuguese, and later US and Dutch foreign powers. Prior to Radio Kootwijk, the Dutch government relied on English radio-transmitters to reach Indonesia, but during World War I, the English began to censor the signals sent, providing for the necessity for the Dutch and US to claim their rule sonically over their territories. The Dutch completed Radio Kootwijk in 1923 and the US followed insuite, establishing a radio-transmitter in 1924 in Manila. The race to dominate through radio-waves further silenced and erased the relations between these two spaces. The exportation of commodities came in tandem with the importation of foreign wars, aggressions and competition.

The relationship between the Philippines and Indonesia is recorded much further back -well before the 9th century- and the two archipelagos share commonalities in language, as well as myths and legends that speak to a shared ancestry between them. In “Act II: Envelopment”, recordings of Philipine trans activist, artist and filmmaker Ram Botero become sonic agents that disrupt and problematize the colonial narrativity and modern racist grammar held in the material relics of european global expansion and domination. Through sharing particular pre-colonial mythologies of the Philippines that register a her-story of alternative forms of spirituality and story-telling, marginalized connectivity and living in-spite-of, Ram Botero’s voice and thoughts illuminate a world that could be otherwise.

Credits:
ACT I:
Trannies' Unison (2019) sound installation by Mavi Veloso
Intro and Outro (morse code, maritaca sounds remixed and edited by Zachary Schoenhut and Raphael Daibert)
ACT II:
- The Caged Bird Sings (2020), Ram Botero (spoken mythologies accompanied by a song gifted to Ram by Manobo children who participated in an art workshop proposing creative ways of exploring narrativity with materials found in their community- soil, flowers, and leaves.)
- Intro and Outro (morse code, maritaca sounds remixed and edited by Zachary Schoenhut and Raphael Daibert)