Paper short abstract:

Funk carioca (Rio funk) musicians liken themselves to scientists and re-invent technology for unintended purposes. I experiment with producing “sound ethnographies” and sonic montages to explore relationships between art, technology, and ethnographic representation.

Paper long abstract:

Funk carioca (Rio funk) began as musicians sampled and dubbed over African American dance music and—with increased access to computers—gradually added Afro-Brazilian rhythms and instrumentation. Funk musicians often liken themselves to inventors and scientists—one pioneering DJ is named "Cientista"—while sound systems compete over having the loudest, latest, and most spectacular technology which promises to overwhelm the senses of its public. Since the 1980s, funk has served as the most common creative expression of Afro-Brazilian youth, booming throughout the city and drawing an estimated 1 million people to weekly dances (bailes) in working-class suburbs and favelas.

To avoid silencing the noisy complexity of my data, I have experimented with producing "sound ethnographies," which include field recordings to engage with the particularities of sound. In this presentation—inspired by the practices of funk DJs—I borrow their performance technique to create a sonic montage reflecting on the baile as a space of appropriation and experimentation with technology in the service of art. In doing so I explore how the relationships between art and technology play out through sound.

To explore the possibilities for arts-based research methods and enhanced modes of presentation and publication, I founded the research collaboration, the Sound Ethnography Project. The Sound Ethnography Project is an experiment in engaging with sound to produce novel ethnographic methods and forms. Through the website, occasional exhibitions and live performances, I ask how form and format affect ethnographic representation.

I contribute to STS through attending to ongoing cultural aspects of technological appropriation and the relations between art, technology, and ethnographic representation .