Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Sound System Epistemologies (DFG)

Emmy Noether Research Group: Sound System Epistemologies (DFG)

"Sound System Epistemologies: Knowledge engendered through Practice" (SSE) is an interdisciplinary research group that studies the intersections of sonic performance, knowledge production and masculinity.

Sound Systems boom and shake, sound systems produce noise and silence, echo and bass. They can make people sway and stand still, focus and zone out, they can lead to mayhem or harmony, to sweet joy and paranoid dread. They bring amplification, hype and dance. The sound system is an international music performance configuration, much like the concert, the dance circle or the procession. Highly pronounced and developed forms of this configuration are Jamaican sound systems. “Sound systems are one of the black diaspora’s most enduring and frequently unacknowledged cultural institutions” asserts Louis Chude-Sokei.
"Sound System Epistemologies: Knowledge engendered through Practice" (SSE) is an interdisciplinary research group that studies the intersections of sonic performance, knowledge production and masculinity. SSE theorises the sound system as a form of musical performance and thus develops a new musicological model. SSE explores types of popular music, in which speaker towers, DJs and dancing audiences play an important role. SSE focusses on Kuduro and Afrohouse from Lisbon, Acid House, FreeTek as well as FLINTA run sound systems from London and female German rap. During the final year, the research group and Mercator Fellow Prof. em. Dr.  Carolyn Cooper from Jamaica develop a sound system exhibition for the Musikinstrumenten-Museum Berlin. SSE is the first project in the field of sound system studies to be based in Germany. "SSE aims to transcend the false dichotomy of live music and recorded music. The project breaks new ground in masculinity research and enriches music research by documenting little-studied repertoires," says musicologist and head of the research group Dr. Stefanie Alisch.

 

 

Special Vybz International Sound System Hellshire Beach, Jamaica
Special Vybz International Sound System Hellshire Beach, Jamaica, 2019, Photo: Alisch


Duration: 2024-2030

Research Group: 3 funded sub-projects, 3 associated sub-projects, research assistants, Advisory Board

Principal Investigator: Dr. Stefanie Alisch

Mercator Fellow: Prof. Dr. em. Carolyn Cooper

Partner Institutions: Music Instrument Museum (Berlin), HKW (Berlin)

 

SSE's Research Objectives:

1.) Document and investigate understudied scenes of Lisbon batida (SP1), London based queer/female/non-binary sound systems (SP2) and freetek (SP3).

2.) Theorise the sound system as music performance configuration.

3.) Develop methodology to mobilise and externalise tacit sound system knowledges.

4.) Illuminate how masculinities and knowledge production co-constitute each other.

5.) Engage sound system communities through pracitioner-led research methods.

6.) Investigate the collective nature of knowledge production through sound system practice.

7.) Share findings through on-line, personal and academic dissemination and sound system exhibit.