shut up and listen! 2011
Interdisciplinary Festival for Music and Sound Art
December 10th, 2011, 20.30
Seth Ayyaz (UK)
The Bird Ghost at the Zaouia – Multi-channel electroacoustic performance
The Bird Ghost at the Zaouia – Multi-channel electroacoustic performance
“For the person whose heart has been conquered by the fire of the love of God Most High, music is important,
for it makes that fire burn hotter. However, for anyone whose heart harbors love for the false, music is fatal
poison for him and is forbidden to him.” (Al-Ghazzali: On Listening To Music)
The piece is a composed machine for listening that uses fragmented recordings made in Islamic religious
rituals. It exploits and reconfigures the sonic detritus, the sounds designated as non-music, in a polemical and
immersive multi-channel work. Between 2002 and 2011, I made many hours of recordings at various zaouia
(Sufi shrines), mosques and religious spaces in Morocco, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon while attending various
prayers and ceremonies (dhikr, zar, lilat, adhan, salat, tilawa). At the request of the respective religious
leaders, no ‘musical’ material has been used. I found birds, resonant tails, breathes, winds, noise, overheard
conversations, and extraneous sounds floating in, sounds that were left behind. The tensions within Sharia
about the permissibility and place of music are long, complex and ongoing. Virtue or poison? As well as
engaging debates within Islam, ‘the bird ghost at the zaouia’ looks outwards, asking questions about sonic
orientalisation – tourism that captures the ‘ethnic’ and colonises the ear.
The first live version of ‘the bird ghost at the zaouia’ was presented at the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology
(2010) in Finland. A full-length version of the piece was recently installed at Leighton House Museum in
London, taking issue with the sites imperial and orientalist history.
(Seth Ayyaz)
Seth Ayyaz
Seth Ayyaz lives in London and is a composer-performer spanning live electronics, free improvisation, noise,
electroacoustic, and Arabic musics - principally nay (end-blown flute), ghaita (reed pipe), and darbuka and daf
(hand percussion). Drawing on his background in neurosciences, his work is concerned with (dis)embodied
perceptions and how these resonate across psychological and social spaces. His work offers counter-narratives
to current metaphors of cultural exchange and hybridity, instead foregrounding issues of friction,
displacement and translation. Ayyaz studied acousmatic music at City University London, specialising in live
electronics and machine-listening, building custom software/hardware ecologies for specific performances. His
focus is on listening – and investigating what a sonic body can do. At present his main interest is improvising
with other listening machines, human or otherwise.
Makharej (2009) (meaning ‘exitings’ or ‘articulations’) is a live electronics and vocal exploration of the sonic
latencies within the dis/embodiment of the Arabic alphabet developed in collaboration with the Egyptian
actress Amira Ghazalla. This was most recently performed to close the 2011 Irtijal Festival in Beirut.
Curatorial projects include the MazaJ Festival of experimental middle-eastern music in London, November
2010 produced with Sound and Music. He also writes on sound: Organised Sound Vol. 16 (03) (Sound, Listening
and Place I) - December 2011, The Wire magazine (Global Ear Nov 2010), and ‘The Butcher’s Block’ in Untitled
Tracks: On Alternative Music in Beirut (2009).
http://www.sethayyaz.com
http://www.zenithfoundation.com
ABOUT PROGRAMME SUAL AWARD PRESS IMPRESSUM SUAL HOME
poison for him and is forbidden to him.” (Al-Ghazzali: On Listening To Music)
The piece is a composed machine for listening that uses fragmented recordings made in Islamic religious
rituals. It exploits and reconfigures the sonic detritus, the sounds designated as non-music, in a polemical and
immersive multi-channel work. Between 2002 and 2011, I made many hours of recordings at various zaouia
(Sufi shrines), mosques and religious spaces in Morocco, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon while attending various
prayers and ceremonies (dhikr, zar, lilat, adhan, salat, tilawa). At the request of the respective religious
leaders, no ‘musical’ material has been used. I found birds, resonant tails, breathes, winds, noise, overheard
conversations, and extraneous sounds floating in, sounds that were left behind. The tensions within Sharia
about the permissibility and place of music are long, complex and ongoing. Virtue or poison? As well as
engaging debates within Islam, ‘the bird ghost at the zaouia’ looks outwards, asking questions about sonic
orientalisation – tourism that captures the ‘ethnic’ and colonises the ear.
The first live version of ‘the bird ghost at the zaouia’ was presented at the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology
(2010) in Finland. A full-length version of the piece was recently installed at Leighton House Museum in
London, taking issue with the sites imperial and orientalist history.
(Seth Ayyaz)
Seth Ayyaz
Seth Ayyaz lives in London and is a composer-performer spanning live electronics, free improvisation, noise,
electroacoustic, and Arabic musics - principally nay (end-blown flute), ghaita (reed pipe), and darbuka and daf
(hand percussion). Drawing on his background in neurosciences, his work is concerned with (dis)embodied
perceptions and how these resonate across psychological and social spaces. His work offers counter-narratives
to current metaphors of cultural exchange and hybridity, instead foregrounding issues of friction,
displacement and translation. Ayyaz studied acousmatic music at City University London, specialising in live
electronics and machine-listening, building custom software/hardware ecologies for specific performances. His
focus is on listening – and investigating what a sonic body can do. At present his main interest is improvising
with other listening machines, human or otherwise.
Makharej (2009) (meaning ‘exitings’ or ‘articulations’) is a live electronics and vocal exploration of the sonic
latencies within the dis/embodiment of the Arabic alphabet developed in collaboration with the Egyptian
actress Amira Ghazalla. This was most recently performed to close the 2011 Irtijal Festival in Beirut.
Curatorial projects include the MazaJ Festival of experimental middle-eastern music in London, November
2010 produced with Sound and Music. He also writes on sound: Organised Sound Vol. 16 (03) (Sound, Listening
and Place I) - December 2011, The Wire magazine (Global Ear Nov 2010), and ‘The Butcher’s Block’ in Untitled
Tracks: On Alternative Music in Beirut (2009).
http://www.sethayyaz.com
http://www.zenithfoundation.com
ABOUT PROGRAMME SUAL AWARD PRESS IMPRESSUM SUAL HOME