the non-correlational sonic encounter
Daniel Melo Morales

Thresholds of audibility outside of the North American perspective interest me on account of lived exposures to unique aural ontologies in and from the global south.  The absorption of these ontologies has included a network of information not limited to the audible and they are ones that have carried with them a synthesis of differences in perspectives which inform my listening practices to this day.

For these sound works, I’m interested in vocality; a vocality that reduces the semantic through an act of becoming as it dissolves the semantic register. Independent of logos, what epistemologies are embedded within the sound of the voice itself?  How does aurality better serve to create a more robust map of meaning(s) when it derives from the malleability of the vocal independent of logos?

The aural source material in this first piece is AM radio from Northern California that I captured live. The radio segment is broadcasted with the aim of reaching migrant laborers who experience injuries on the job, but who don’t know where to turn for medical or legal guidance.  Either because they aren’t already aware that the California government protects them, whether they are documented or not, or their supervisors haven’t educated the laborers on their possible courses of action, this broadcast serves a wide range of Northern Californian communities.

Headphones or quality speakers recommended.