Mang Ayi playing the trompet pencak

The Future Sounds Of Folk (Official Website – http://www.onemannation.com/thefuturesoundsoffolk)
Imagining the sounds of the post-folk. This project tries to use the preservation of vanishing and declining cultures though the medium of sound in hopes of preventing their disappearance. The process is broken down into various stages, the initial stage will commence with various workshops conducted by myself around the world with The Future Sounds Of Folk as its theme. The workshops will introduce participants to the concept of the project, its aims and what is expected by the end of the workshop.

Based on the history of the location where the workshop takes place, participants will be asked to conceptualize a ‘future scenario’ for this location, inventing a written history of this place some centuries in the future, they will be asked to take factors such as immigration, commerce, war and other factors which would influence the development and sustainability of folk music and their place within their histories. The goal of the workshop is to have a brief script describing the future history of the location in question and how this has influenced its folk music.

This ‘future scenario’ is then passed on to various composers, musicians, sound artists to put the sounds to the concept, who are selected in an open call at the start of the whole project as well as just prior to each workshop. The sonic contributors will have access to a database of audio samples which they can choose to use for their compositions under the Creative Commons license, these samples range from pre-recorded folk music, audio samples of various folk instruments and field recordings taken from various locations. The source of this wealth of sound material will come from digital archives such as Beeld And Geluid in the Netherlands, from anonymous contributors as well as from my library of audio samples. Under the license used for the project, all original authors of the audio samples need to be credited by the composers if their samples were used for the composition.

These future scenarios will concurrently be passed on to the Steim network of instrument builders who will produce an instrument or instruments based on these ‘future scenarios’. All compositions contributed will be put up on the official website, a CD with selected contributions will be pressed and released with the publication of the book presenting the various processes of the project as well as an eventual roaming exhibition beginning with the Volkenkunde Museum in the Netherlands.

The first phase of this project will focus on the Indonesian archipelago, its history and what is the sound of its post-folk music. An initial workshop has been scheduled somewhere in 2010 in the Sundanese town of Bandung. The focus will be on the region North of Bandung, an area endangered by recent activities of deforestation and where the symbolic Manglayang mountain stands. This phase of the project is supported by local initiative Common Room and a second phase is scheduled for Yogjakarta.

Goals Of The Project
_ Preservation of dying cultures by compiling an audio database/archive of folk music from around the world as well as field recordings and pre-recorded folk music.
_ Artistic production using collected sounds of these diminishing cultures to produce contemporary works that appropriate and fuse the memory of the cultures in questions
_ Facilitating awareness through public accessibility of the archived sample database with the use of open licenses (ie. Creative Commons), that may be used for further productions by the public for their own works that are also to be released under the same open license.
_ Creating an international network of musicians, ecologist, historians, musicologist, scientist, instrument builders, artists, computer programmers and archivists who usually work under very separate and different circumstances.

The project has been made with the continuing logistical and organizational support of Dutch new media institute Steim, Museum Volkenkunde, the digital archive Beeld en Geluid and Indonesian based agents Common Room.

For further information, please read up on the related blog post
http://www.onemannation.com/archives/388
http://www.onemannation.com/archives/365