There Is Room for Everyone
(Or Everything) To Be Heard

»Instead of being in this solipsistic echo-chamber, I can instead embrace the communal orchestra of my environment and see every sound as relevant to my sonic process.«

Lucreccia Quintanilla and Suvani Suri: In our first studio visit you presented instruments you built yourself, such as bone flutes and rock drums. I found the materiality quite striking, and I am interested in knowing more about what informed this aspect of the process – the initial selection and gathering of materials, for example.

Bola Chinelo: As I was researching for this project, I came upon examples of some of the first instruments to ever be created and found pictures of bone flutes and rock gongs. I then collected recycled bones (from meals), removed the joints and marrow, then washed them with a baking soda slurry to clean and bleach them. After drying them, I used a fork to put holes in the flutes.

For the rocks, I foraged different neighborhoods looking for rocks. I noticed how different it was to play a rock gong in its natural environment versus playing it inside of a closed space, so I always returned the rocks after playing with them. Many of these instruments are housed in museums and extracted from their Indigenous environments and contexts. I think this plays a role in the sound-making process.

Lucreccia and Suvani: How do you think about »undesirable or unwanted sound« in your artistic practice? What about working with algorithms speaks to these ideas?

Bola: Most of my relationship with »unwanted sound« has been through the recording process. Hearing background noise was initially something that I felt was an impediment, but it became something I wanted to challenge myself to embrace for this project. What would it look like to amplify the »noise« that surrounds me, or my own vocal flaws, etc.?

I also had to look at it and think – in many ways the noise I make is »unwanted« and »undesired« to my neighbors (or even other species) in my environment. Instead of being in this solipsistic echo-chamber, I can instead embrace the communal orchestra of my environment and see every sound as relevant to my sonic process. It became an interaction or collaboration.  For instance – if I am recording at 10:05 and the bus pulls up by my house at the same time, there will be this sonic collision between us.

Some of the sounds in this project were created using data sonification software. Photos, ideograms, and ideographs are generally regarded as soundless containers so I wanted to extract individualized soundscapes from Nsibidi symbols and see what emerges.

I also played a lot with the concept of »natural« algorithms. As I was field recording, I noticed how many sounds have an algorithm that responds to the environment they are in. For instance, cicadas have natural algorithms where their sound is loudest at certain times of day. Horns and sounds from buses and cars have times when they are loudest as well, which in my neighborhood is usually on weekdays at 8am or 6pm. The fruit vendors in my neighborhood each have a morning schedule and I would hear them at the same time of day every day. It made me realize that what may seem like random sounds are actually calls and responses happening within an ecosystem.

Lucreccia and Suvani: What you say about »extracting from their environments and contexts« is quite a powerful provocation. This relocation and claim is part of the extractive tendency of colonialism. How do you think about »reclaiming« or the act of decontextualizing in your work – what does it mean to reclaim for you? How does sound and »sound-making« play a part in this?

»I also played a lot with the concept of »natural« algorithms. As I was field recording, I noticed how many sounds have an algorithm that responds to the environment they are in.«

Bola: I recognize many sounds are not mine to reclaim, but I can remove them from a position of being perceived as »noise« or as a nuisance. In this context, sonic reclamation opens up the possibility of  seeing things through different vantage points. A bird chirping off in the distance is not concerned with me trying to get a »clean« recording of my vocals or instruments. Again, it is about letting go of viewing myself as »center stage« and every sound that surrounds me as the »background« to my foreground. There is room for everyone (or everything) to be heard.

I’m still learning how to deal with the pressure of capturing a sound »just right« or with the »right tools.« The biggest challenge is resisting the urge to want to fine tune and edit everything. What is important is capturing a sound in its authenticity with whatever I have on hand and just allowing it to be what it is.

Lucreccia and Suvani: Your reflections on how you might like to »amplify the »noise« that surrounds you, or your own vocal flaws« makes me think of the work of someone like Jacob Kirkegaard, whose practice is centered on making the indiscernible or the unnoticed conditions around more palpable through sound. It also makes me think of how listening is a form of »embracing« the Möbius-strip nature of life and things around us, where the inside and the outside, the desirable and the undesirable, are intertwined and not static. The »sonic collision« in that sense, as you put it, is a compelling image. Are there other forms that »sonic collisions« could take, if not aural? I am curious to know how you think of representing sound or listening, in non-aural ways.

Bola: I’m still exploring that. I’m curious about haptic technology and the ways in which sound can activate experiences through the body – vibrations,  goosebumps, shivers, tears, etc. I tried a haptic suit for the first time several years ago and it really opened my eyes to how sound can be experienced in more ways than one. For this project, the visuals became an extension of the sonic experience. I ended up incorporating spectrograms in a few of my illustrations to demonstrate visual representations of sound and how they can shift.

Visually, I wanted to create an environment that felt »chaotic,« »random,« and »tangled,« much like sound can be in a day-to-day context. I wanted it to feel like a reinterpretation of a playlist – where sounds (or »songs«) can play concurrently instead of one by one in a particular order. The sounds can shift, amplify, or wane, depending on the participant’s movement or stillness. I also visually and sonically left room for lots of negative space and emptiness. This way people can retreat and breathe for a bit – almost like hitting the pause button.

Lucreccia and Suvani: It’s also fascinating to me how you think about the patterns belonging to the natural worlds and rhythms as algorithmic. That also leaves room for the »unexpected,« the errancy to leak in. In your processes of data sonification, how do you design the algorithms to keep that room for uncertainty alive?

Bola: It just occurs on its own at times. Sometimes the software glitches, misinterprets, or overlaps sounds unintentionally. The variety and uncertainty in the sonification process comes from the features displayed within the data I use (which is generally an image – or visual data). Playing with colors, shapes, and sizes can alter the way an image sounds, but my recording devices, process, and environment also play a role in how the sounds are captured. Static and artifacts can peek through in the recording process and cause clicks or buzzes, which give new texture to the way an image sounds. There is also the reality of sounds eliciting different reactions and interpretations from people which for me is the most fascinating part of this process. I am now learning to let go and be open to the reality of certain elements of my work being misinterpreted or misunderstood and that leaves room for the unexpected to occur as well.

Bola Chinelo is a multimedia artist based in Los Angeles. Chinelo’s work uses esoteric symbolism, coding languages, and sonic and iconographic languages to convey messaging.

Suvani Suri is an artist/researcher working with sound, text, and intermedia assemblages. She is actively engaged in thinking through listening. Her practice is informed by the techno-politics of sound, aural/oral histories, and critical imaginations activated by the relational and speculative capacities of voice.

Lucreccia Quintailla is a multidisciplinary artist, DJ, educator, co-director of Liquid Architecture, and a sound system operator. She is interested in sound and collectivity and collaboration.

All images courtesy the artist.