Rhizome 2012 – Malians (working title)
Artist: Lalya Gaye, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK
Email: lalya.gaye@gmail.com
Project Description
Until recently a beacon of peace and democracy in West Africa, Mali is rapidly descending into chaos. Following the events by watching the news, reading newspapers online and talking on the phone with friends and relatives, I have become increasingly aware of the lack of first-hand accounts in the media – both locally and internationally – of what the Malian population itself is experiencing in their everyday life: what their opinions are, their fears, their angst, their losses, but also their hopes, their resilience and how they get on with life in the midst of the conflict. Many stories of Malian women in particular, remain unheard.
With this piece, I aim to bring forward voices of Malian women. I wish to build a sound-installation where visitors will hear narratives taled by these women, in a first-person perspective, as well as live sounds from the streets of Bamako.
The installation will be a 160 cm high version of the large-sized earrings worn by my grandmother’s people, which bear a strong personal significance for me as a member of its diaspora. It will allow visitors, one at a time, to put themselves “between the ears” of a number of Malian women, by positioning their head between the earrings and listening to binaural recordings of each woman’s voice and of the country’s soundscape.
Touching one of the earrings will enable visitors in Europe unacquainted with Malian languages to hear an overlaid interpretation in French, English or Spanish. Touching the other earring will switch to a live audio stream from Bamako, or if possible, from Timbuktu (currently occupied by armed rebels).
Traditional Fulani earrings, with measurements 8 cm x 8 cm
A streaming computer, a media-player and a micro-controller will be connected to the installation through red wires and audio cables resembling red threads sometimes used to bind this type of earrings. Audio will be transmitted to the visitor using acoustic actuators placed on the installation close to where one’s head will be positioned. These will turn the sheet metal into a resonating “speaker” surface. The sound will be in stereo and just loud enough for people in the middle of it to hear it properly, making the experience intimate and for the most part individual. Capacitive sensing will be used to switch between the playback modes and the stream mode. A cheap computer or phone operated by a local contact will stream from location in Bamako.
Dakar-based digital media art centre Kër Thiossane (of which Susana Moliner and Marta Vallejo Herrando are behind the blog Ma-liens that aims to bring forward voices from and about Mali) will help me reach out to women of each of the main ethnies of Mali and help me gather their recordings. Once the voices recorded, an interpretor will be hired. I will edit the audio and build the physical installation in Europe. For the metal work, I will have free access to Northumbria University’s metal shop during the summer. I will build the rest of the installation at Culture Lab Newcastle, where I am currently a resident.
Production Timeline
– Planning, research, gathering of technology and supplies: 2 weeks, 1 day a week
– Gathering of recordings and interpretation: in parallel with the rest of the process, depending on people’s availability in relation to the evolution of the conflict. Approximated allocated time: 2 months, 1.5 days a week
– Steel cutting, bending, grinding and welding: 1 week half-time
– Adding, testing and adjusting of the electronics and audio streaming: 1 week half-time
– Sound-editing and processing: 1 week full-time
– Last adjustments and finalising of the installation: 1 week full-time
Project Budget
– Artist fee: $3,850 for about 250 hours of work
– Binaural microphone: $50
– Steel sheets and other metal parts: $450
– Misc art supplies (paint, etc): $50
– Electronics and cables (acoustic actuators and capacitive sensing): $100
– Cheap second-hand computer with microphone or mobile phone in Mali (depending on market availability – bought on site by local contact): $250
– Interpretor(s): $250 for about 16 hours work
– Already available: audio-recording equipment, mediaplayer, streaming device in Europe, free access to construction facilities, physical computing basics (Arduino, etc): $0
– Kër Thiossane’s contribution to this project will be funded from their own budget
Total requested: $5,000
Artist Bio
Born in 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland, Lalya Gaye is a Swedish and Senegalese-Malian digital media artist and interaction design researcher based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. At the convergence of art, technology, and design, her work explores the poetic integration of digital technology into everyday environments, behaviours, urban space and everyday artefacts, in order to grasp and revisit our physical and emotional relations to the everyday, to space and to distance. She builds public art installations with various media such as steel, light and sound, takes part in site-specific audio experiments, teaches digital media and interaction design at graduate level, delivers creative electronics workshops, and regularly organizes cross-disciplinary research workshops and small music and sound-art festivals.
Lalya received a B.Sc. in Physics at the University of Geneva, a M.Sc.Eng. in Electroacoustics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, worked several years at the Future Applications Lab, Viktoria Institute, worked on a Ph.D. in Applied Information Technology at the University of Göteborg, and taught at the Interaction Design programme at Chalmers Technical University. In 2009, she was a Visiting Professor and Artist in Residence at the Digital + Media department at Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI, USA), before joining Culture Lab Newcastle in the UK in 2010. She is also a founding member of the Swedish art group Dånk! Collective from Göteborg, Sweden and was a steering committee member of the International Mobile Music Workshops series.
Work Samples: [PDF]
CV: [PDF]