Welcome to the second Reading Group this fall! Delighted to see so many keen readers in the previous session, we are continuing our series of informal meetings to read various publications focused on voice, sound and listening on Wednesday, November 23rd, 5-7pm.

Upcoming session led by Jo Hislop focuses on Sound, Rhythm, Body by Phiroze Vasunia, an excerpt of the publication Coming to Know. Coming to Know is the second book in a three-volume series titled An Archeology of Listening, that centres around the work of ‘self-taught Acoustic Archeologist’ Umashankar Manthravadi.

Sound, Rhythm, Body uses the work of Sound Archaeologist Umashankar Manthravadi as a back drop to unravel some of the historical and cultural ways in which the bodies relate to sound. Phiroze Vasunia weaves and eclectic range of moments and memories together, tracing through topics such as: the healing properties of sound, ritual, communal bodies, and rhythmical language.

To open the session we will read ‘Poem for Three Voices’ by Umashankar Manthravadi as a warm up to the topic and a taster of his work. During the Reading Group, we will watch a workshop by Samita Sinha in connection to selected publication.

‘(…) We should factor in the role of our own bodies and contemporary spaces in the archeology of sound. Such an archeology must be alert to the interplay between presence and absence, between affect and effect, between body and rhythm, between present and past, between sound and its privation. For it is precisely in the contemplation of these interactions that it affords us a reckoning of aural experiences’ (p. 161)

In order to get a PDF copy of the selected publication in advance, send an email to valentina@publics.fi.

Jo Hislop is an artist and producer working across photography, film and writing. Her work explores the nuances and intricacies of sensorial and bodily experience. Originally from the North of England, she is currently based in Helsinki.