BIGAS

Sound is instrumental to the way we experience and interact with reality. This project explores sonic transmissions as a communication function considering how time inflections influence experience and communication. Bigas looks into the experiential subjectivity of time within the context of speculating the pre-colonial, sonic spatial environment of the Kalinga Tribe in the Cordillera Mountains of the Philippines. Through the creation of a soundscape using indigenous instruments, nature ambiance and repurposing the mancala as an instrument during a live performance, I aimed to produce a cross-temporal dialogue that speaks to the exploration and preservation of pre-colonial heritage while alluding to a precognitive response to the imminent colonization of our culture.

SOUND: Bamboo Zithers, Kulintangan, Sunka (Mancala), Throat Singing, Women Singing, Violin, Forest Ambiance

SCORE: An image of an elder Kalinga woman, meant to represent the woman throat singing with the traditional symbolic tattoos of their values and beliefs. She wears beads in the color and fashion they traditionally wear representative of each sonic piece I used within the soundscape as visually composed in Reaper. The overlaying waves are meant to symbolize the voices of the people and the highs/lows they experience together. The overall look is that of pressed paper, to speak to the idea of a memory of the past.

DAW: Reaper

NOTE: Created my own contact mics to capture the sound of me playing Sunka with a local set (shells & wood) from Baguio City, Philippines during the live performance. The intention was to seamlessly weave in my 'voice' through a physical connection to my culture into the dialogue between past and present. The sonic quality of the shells hitting the wood emulated the sound of rain within the re-creation of the pre-colonial memory in an effort to avoid 'disrupting' the re-creation of the Kalinga's spatial experience.