Is dissonance – dissent? Is resonance – solidarity?

Talk by Vita Zelenska

00:00

Free entry

The group momentum and resonance of chants and songs during protest might signify solidarity. However, non-harmonic, atonal, or »unorderly« sounds likewise suggest solidarity – through dissonance. In this juxtaposition we can question how solidarity is often described as resonance – an act of understanding that strengthens itself through collective listening – and, by extension, what solidarity really means.

Solidarity is complex and exists as a combination of both dissonance and resonance. Dissonance and resonance can also be used to overturn any unified understanding of solidarity.

Situated between sound studies, musicology, and migration research, as well as ethnographic work in Athens, Chania, and Heraklion, this presentation will engage with the topic of migration solidarity in Greece and the EU. It will question the ease with which both solidarity as resonance and dissent as dissonance are sometimes used. Dissonant/resonant migration politics will be examined through the works of musicologists who expose extraction within contexts of lingering colonial and imperial violence. Inspired by Modernity’s Ear: Listening to Race and Gender in World Music by Roshanak Kheshti, who asks, »Is resonance the libidinization of waveform?,« I will discuss the desire for resonance. I will use the political shape of resonance/dissonance theorised by Dylan Robinson in Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies as an exemplary critique of reconciliation.

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