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Paper short abstract:

The paper introduces a practice-led research investigating the field of possibilities of the term technology in ancestral and contemporary musical contexts in Southern and Western Africa. It observes the materiality of instruments by bridging music, technology and indigenous knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

Through fieldwork and practice-led research, the author has investigated transcultural aspects of sonic arts in Southern and Western Africa by exploring the field of possibilities of the term technology within musical contexts. During research trips in Mozambique, South Africa, and Eswatini from 2015 to 2018, the investigation deepened by combining pre-colonial musical instruments with electroacoustic ones and improvisation methods. The point of departure resides in the situation of the masters’s knowledge of these instruments being in rural environments, and the youngest generation going to urban environments for better opportunities, which lead to the loss of musical knowledge transmission. Thus, the author developed a collaborative practice-led research to address the field of possibilities of such technology by re-enacting the instruments in contemporary musical contexts. Further, the idea to investigate sonic arts of rituals, ancestral and indigenous technology and knowledge take place too since 2022 in Ghana, where an on-going research through dialogue with musicians playing specific instruments, poets, Elders, and the serendipitous encounters that may happen, informs the research. The interest resides in addressing the idea of materiality of the instruments, the voices and their connection with the immaterial world. The dialogue is also established through contemporary computer music. The augmentation of the purely material ‘thingness’ and motility of the musical instrument is proposed here as sonic potential allowing dialogues. The intended scope of the project is extensive, exploring the promotion of multiple worldview, world senses, world sensations related to the traditional Indigenous Elders’ knowledge.