Paulo DANTAS

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Paulo DANTAS

Participating Program	Research Residency Program
Activity Based	Rio de Janeiro
City	Tokyo
Period	2023.5 - 2023.7

Purpose of the residency

I wish to further research a recurring topic in my studies of sound culture: the variety of relations and interactions between music, everyday human-made sounds and the ambients that surround them, with a special interest in ambiguous situations where one could not distinguish clearly the boundaries between those different aspects of sound.

Plan during the residency

• Research sonic situations that could be framed as 'sound installations' in urban contemporary Tokyo: their activation depends on exterior stimuli and they are located outside of art institutions (I can think of subway gates sounds, performed by the masses of people passing by).
• Produce audio (and sometimes video) recordings of those sonic situations.
• Write texts and notes to conceptually support the aforementioned activities.
• Propose sketches of an original performance / sound composition, related to the aforementioned research.
• Revisit and re-record the locations (in Tokyo) and situations presented in my first solo album, Cidade Arquipélago (2015).
• If possible, contact japanese artists associated with Onkyokei and Offsite; conduct interviews with them focusing on notions such as 'Ma' or 'Chinmoku' (as in Taku Sugimoto's "A Philosophical Approach to Silence"), and investigating the idea of the ambient (i.e. Offsite, their public and scene, the neighborhood) as a performer in their former practices.

Activities during the residency

Throughout my residence at TOKAS, I searched for urban sonic situations that could be framed as 'sound installations' (or ‘sound routines’), focusing on Tokyo’s Sumida-Ku and Asakusa areas. Field recordings of selected situations could be heard during the Open Studio days, while functioning as scores to orient the performance of automated instruments assembled by me during the research period.

Outcome of the residency

What I now consider as the greatest and most consequential achievements of my research are related to the decision of sharpening my focus on framing ‘sound routines’ performed by the city of Tokyo, on the limit between everyday situations and aesthetic appreciation.
As opposed to only being attentive to ‘special foreign cultural events’ - a recurring and frequently criticized issue on field recording practices and discourses -, hopefully I could dive deeper into the workings of certain areas of Tokyo, by dedicating myself to routinely recording everyday events and situations. Also, the family of instruments that I have assembled during the research period is certainly a result with immense potential to be further developed.

Creator Information