imponderabilia of everyday life: birds
ever since the tipos, or northern wind, picked up, i have a new means of telling the time: a flock of a several hundred crested myna birds (acridotheres cristatellus, ba Continue Reading →
Tag: soundscapes
walking a “space of fifty steps” with rahic talif
>ironically, ciRahic’s project to recover the ability to read the ocean’s writing relies not upon natural materials, but on flip flops, the refuse of an industrial society that displaced an ‘amis understanding of the ocean as animate, vibrant, and life giving. nearly daily, ciRahic visits the ocean to observe and gather flip flops either discarded on the beach or elsewhere, which somehow come to rest on the beach. visiting sites along taiwan’s entire east coast, he stops when he has found a flip flop and begins to observe his surroundings, creating a narrative for what he has found. for example, the flip flop could be faded, showing the signs of a long journey; he may ask, how long did you float before you arrived here? do you miss your home? Continue Reading →
context and connotation: on viewing hu tai-li’s “returning souls”
a few weeks ago, i mediated a discussion on hu tai-li’s 2012 documentary, “returning souls.” i had seen the film previously in a’tolan. in harvard, the context of viewing created a completely different set of connotations Continue Reading →
sounds from a’tolan: vendor trucks
on taiwan, a definition of the street as a place for vehicular traffic has not displaced other possibilities, in which the street serves as a medium of display, leisure, performance, or commerce. while taiwanese religious processions express these possibilities of street life most flamboyantly, more humble conveyances of street life give to the street its quotidian values. Continue Reading →
a demo
one of the perils (but also pleasures!) of ethnographic fieldwork is that one gets caught up in other people’s projects. recently, one of these “other projects” has been the u.s. Continue Reading →
