Phonographic Writing: workshop by Rui Chaves at the University of São Paulo

On 1 October, INET-md researcher Rui Chaves led the workshop Escrita Fonográfica (Phonographic Writing) at the Department of Music of the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP), with students from the Composition course of the undergraduate Music programme, at the invitation of Prof. Valéria Bonafé.

The workshop proposed thinking of writing as another way of “recording” our sonic surroundings. Like the score or the recorder, writing carries traces of conventions, ideologies and the limits of the vocabulary and grammar available to us; it is also a slow movement against the speed of what we hear. This mismatch, however, is fertile ground: it tells us something about where we are situated, about background and foreground sounds, about the rhythms and textures we observe, about our memories and emotions, about what is missing, about the audibility of the social and about the effect of our presence in that place. With pen and paper in hand, participants left the classroom to listen to and write the sounds of everyday life. More than presenting an artistic practice, the workshop served as a reminder that the sonic life of the everyday can put the dictates of the canon to shame.

The workshop took place as part of the fieldwork for the project Revolutions per Minute: Finding Utopia(s) in Brazilian Sound Art, funded by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, I.P.) under contract 2024.07928.CEECIND.