“MUSICHE SUBALTERNE” is an ongoing project of sound experimentation on the themes of Orientalism and decolonization in music, especially in relation to new technologies and AI.
Antonio Gramsci used the term “subaltern” to identify social groups marginalised from the cultural hegemony, whose agency are denied within a colonial context.
In regard to music, Non–Western forms of musical expression have been reinterpreted as a function of the dominant culture by Western intellectuals and by the music industry and thus classified as folklore, traditional music, oriental music, world music or others marketing labels. In doing so, they have been marginalised in the cultural context and deprived of their own independent expressive strength and possibility to evolve autonomously. In order to be heard and to be known, the subaltern culture must therefore adopt Western ways of expression and knowledge.
The aim of the project is to explore and show the functioning of the classifying and labelling system of the music industry and the Western cultural complex, its ramifications and its power, also making use of artificial intelligence, which has now become the main means of classification and labelling in a wide variety of fields. Since I was also born and educated in the Western cultural system I would like to initiate a creative and fertile dialogue and a cooperation with artists born and educated within subaltern cultural contexts, while avoiding misappropriation and simplistic and uncritical contamination.
A first part of the project has been presented during the Opening Night of Vorspiel CTM and Transmediale Festival in Berlin in January 2022. The result is a video that can be seen here.
