Le Japon sonore : modernité, constructions sociales, rapports de force / Japan and sound: modernity, social constructs and power relations

• 14-16 novembre 2024
  • 14-15 novembre, MSH Bordeaux, salle Jean Borde
  • 16 novembre, en ligne
  • Lien visio du 14 novembre en Zoom
  • Lien visio du 15 novembre en Zoom
  • Lien visio du 16 novembre en Zoom
• Voir le programme / Télécharger le programme (pdf)
• Consulter les résumés/abstracts / Télécharge les résumés/abstracts (à venir)

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Séminaire ouvert à la formation doctorale en présentiel, inscription obligatoire pour les doctorant.e.s:

Jeudi 14 novembre:

• Personnes Université Bordeaux Montaigne ici
• Personnes hors Université Bordeaux Montaigne ici

Vendredi 15 novembre

• Personnes Université Bordeaux Montaigne ici
• Personnes hors Université Bordeaux Montaigne ici

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Des recherches ethnographiques et historiques récentes sur le son ont montré que les pratiques de production et d’écoute sonores et musicales sont liées aux constructions sociales, notamment à la question de l’identité et aux rapports de force ; elles suggèrent de la sorte que la relation entre le son et la vie quotidienne doit être comprise à l’intérieur de contextes culturels spécifiques. Ainsi la dissémination globale des technologies et l’uniformisation des techniques de production et de médiation du son depuis l’époque moderne sont des phénomènes qui s’accompagnent d’actes de réappropriation et de réinterprétation de ce son. Interroger comment est fait, médiatisé et reçu le son, c’est dès lors mettre au jour une tension politique fondamentale entre ce qui peut être ramené au couple entendre et se faire entendre ; se renseigner sur des processus d’exploration du rapport à l’autre et d’affirmation psychique et sociale d’un soi et d’un espace individuel ou communautaire ; repenser les structures du pouvoir à travers les empreintes, et l’écologie desquelles elles dépendent, d’une forme transitoire.

En suivant le questionnement ci-dessus, le colloque « Le Japon sonore : modernité, constructions sociales, rapports de force » a pour intention d’identifier des zones de frictions sociales qui potentiellement invisibles ou peu renseignées sont cependant proprement non muettes ; de scruter les dispositifs médiatiques et techniques de construction et d’expression par le son d’identités déterminées ; d’examiner de quelle manière le son se constitue comme un instrument de contrôle ou de résistance, de cohésion ou de dispersion des forces, d’unification ou de segmentation d’espaces, au sein des multiples trajectoires, internationales, nationales ou locales, qui accompagnent les changements relatifs à la société japonaise moderne et contemporaine.

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Programme:

Jeudi 14 novembre (Hybrid; virtual talks are indicated by an asterisk)

10h30-10h45: Opening Comments

10h45-11h45 – Panel 1: Son et corporalité / Sound and corporality (eng)

• BRUSEKER Nancy, Transfeminine vocal difference in Japan and France in the 1960s
• SEIBT Oliver, (Re-?)Assembling Misora Hibari: Theorizing the ontological status of a Japanese icon

13h15-14h45 – Panel 2: Son et représentations ethniques / Sound and ethnic representations (fr/eng)

• KOWALCZYK Beata, A theoretical approach to agentivity and race in the social performance of music
• BUSCATTO Marie, Escaping the Japanization of one’s music, creating a universal art form: self-expression at the heart of Japanese jazz
• HIRAI Akiko*, La construction de l’identité aïnoue au travers des activités d’un musicien: Oki

15h-16h30 – Panel 3 : Représentations du média sonore / Representations of sound media (fr/eng)

• PATIN Cléa, Les stratégies d’internationalisation de Yamaha
• MERLINI Mattia, Downplaying eclecticism: Traumatic transnational adaptations in Japanese video game music
• O’REILLY Sean, Sound effects cinema: Mid-1930s Japanese films and the surprising synthesis of silent and sound techniques

18h30-19h30 – Keynote speech / Musée d’ethnographie, Université Bordeaux, Amphi E, bâtiment E

• HAUKAMP Iris – SMITH Martyn

Vendredi 15 novembre (Hybrid; virtual talks are indicated by an asterisk)

9h30-10h30 – Panel 4: Le son dans l’histoire (fr)

• WARTELLE Clara, La discipline du corps en chanson
• MULLER Guillaume, Du son pour tous ? L’espace des sirènes anti-aériennes durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale au Japon

10h45-12h15 – Panel 5: Le son dans la représentation et la reproduction de la tradition / Sound in the representation and reproduction of tradition (fr/eng)

• GIOLAI Andrea, Modernity, audile techniques, and Japanese court music in the Meiji period
• GATIER Céleste, Le son dans l’espace du thé : études acoustiques et transferts culturels
• WAJIMA Yûsuke, Re-vernacularization of Bon Odori in post 3.11 and COVID-19 Japan

13h45-15h15 – Panel 6: L’artiste et la représentation de son milieu / The artist and the representation of his environment (fr/eng)

• ESCANDE Marin, Group Ongaku et l’improvisaton automatique : le son comme objet
• MURAMATSU Kenjirô, Le tournant de Hosono Haruomi vers la musique ambient dans les années 1980-1990 : concept de « kankô ongaku » (musique touristique) comme remise en question de la posture du créateur musical et de la relation homme-terre
• PROIETTI Luca, Save the noise: Supportive acts and works in Japanese noise music in the COVID-19 pandemic

15h30-16: Concert 

• GATIER Céleste

Samedi 16 novembre (online)

9h-10h30 – Panel 7: Scènes musicales et représentations culturelles / Music scenes and cultural representations (fr/eng)

• HASHIMOTO Tami, Gyaru and hip-hop: Shaping a sound-based identity
• POIROUX Jérémie & SHAKESPEARE Dougal, La musique électronique à Tokyo : une scène (définitivement) analogique ?
• XU Shuqi, Collective euphony vs. individual expression: Contrasting sound politics in East Asian and Western popular music concerts

10h45-12h15 – Panel 8: Language and voice (eng)

• FOLLACO Gala Maria, « Did anyone hear what I said? »: Acting through sound in Higuchi Ichiyō’s writing
• MATSUTOYA Mari, Soft Voices for Hard Technologies
• SHAMOVA Lidiya & URA Satomi, The music of words of Japan: The relationship between human language and music

13h15-14h45 – Panel 9: The agentivity of subjects listening to and producing sound (eng)

• ZABOROWSKI Rafal, Multivocality and the vocaloid fan canon
• NAKAMURA Maiko, The absence and the existence of the self: The pleasure of listening to BLH
• OSHIKAWA Aya, Masculinities and femininities of Japanese singer-songwriters

15h-16h – Panel 10: Sounds and nostalgia (eng)

• SOMMET Moritz, Re-sounding Shōwa: Ōtaki Eiichi’s A Long Vacation and nostalgia for 1980s Japan
• DÜSTER Benjamin Daniel, Tomorrow on cassette: Japan’s tape jams in the new media age

16h15-17h15 – Panel 11: Sound and representation of social space (eng)

• CLAVER HERNÀNDEZ Elena, Recorded sound and the development of ideological control: Changes in Japanese cinema since 1931
• #ancre31MURPHY Alexander, The ear is a weapon: Soundscapes of racial violence in Tokyo, 1923

17h15-17h30 – Closing comments

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Résumés / Abstracts

Panel 1 – Sound and corporality (eng)

Nancy Bruseker:
“Transfeminine vocal difference in Japan and France in the 1960s”
As Zimman (2018) notes, “studying gender and the voice focuses on a site in which the body and cultural processes of socialization and identity construction come into contact with one another.” This paper is concerned with what it means that the songs of Japanese Karuseru Maki and Miwa Akihiro feature voices that do not fit the stereotype of Japanese femininity, in contrast to the stereotype of femininity found in the vocal stylings of French singers Coccinelle and Bambi.  As transfeminine people performing music in the same time period of the 1960s, these four individuals were contemporaries, though living in Japan and France respectively. Through analysis of recordings, I show that the pitch and range used by the Japanese performers correspond more closely to that of a stereotypically male performance, whereas the French performers correspond to a female performance.  However, Miwa Akihiro had a performance career before socially transitioning, and an established vocal style. Further, I argue that it seems likely that Miwa Akihiro served as a vocal model for Karuseru Maki, and that this accounts for the commonalities between their singing ranges. In the French context, by contrast, the performance career was part of the transition for Coccinelle and Bambi, and it was therefore more important to them to provide feminine vocal verisimilitude. Thus, similar contexts led to different outcomes.

Oliver Seibt:
“(Re-?)Assembling Misora Hibari: Theorizing the ontological status of a Japanese icon”
In 2019, Japanese public TV station NHK broadcasted a live performance by iconic enka singer Misora Hibari, interpreting a brand-new composition entitled “Are kara” that was exclusively composed on the occasion of her 30th death anniversary. There is a number of deceased popular music stars such as Roy Orbinson, Tupac Shakur, or Whitney Houston who recently have been reanimated and staged as holograms. But Misora Hibari was the first deceased singer performing a song on stage that she never performed in her lifetime. The faithful reproduction of Misora’s characteristic voice and performance style was made possible by the Yamaha Corporation’s VOCALOID:AI software, an earlier version of which was used to create the tunes sung by virtual idol Hatsune Miku, and the latest 4K 3D video technology. Following Nick Prior’s advice not to over-exaggerate the revolutionary character of digitalization (2012), in this presentation I don’t want to celebrate the technological innovations that enable such a production. Instead, I will question if what at first sight seems to be a haunting re-assembly of Misora Hibari that only became possible by means of the latest digital technologies isn’t in fact a continuation of a social assembling process that characterizes the cultural production of celebrities and cultural icons also in the analogue domain.

Panel 2 – Son et représentations ethniques / Sound and ethnic representations (fr/eng)

Beata Kowalczyk:
“A theoretical approach to agentivity and race in the social performance of music”
Sociologists of music and cultural production have found that racial inequalities are deeply embedded in the structures and institutions of the arts and cultural industries and consistently disadvantage certain racial groups. These researchers have shown that artists struggle to overcome racial oppression, but that their efforts often inadvertently lead to further reification and perpetuation of racial segregation in the cultural and creative industries. In my talk, I present a theoretical model that can help to better understand how artists and creative workers respond to racial oppression in contexts where racial meanings are activated. Inspired by cultural pragmatics, I theorise five types of performative response to racial stigma and marginalisation, ranging from denial of the importance of race in the arts, through respect for artists’ racialised representations, to an attempt to emancipate themselves from these representations. I argue that a more detailed analysis of the way in which actors in artistic and cultural production deal with difference is fundamental to understanding the social and cultural processes of change and the reinforcement or mitigation of inequalities. The theoretical insights gained may be applicable to other contexts in which professionals are vulnerable to stigmatisation and marginalisation and where this is reinforced by the intertwined axes of difference: race, gender, age, class and disability.

Marie Buscatto:
“Escaping the Japanization of one’s music, creating a universal art form: self-expression at the heart of Japanese jazz”
Practising an art form that originated in the United States, Japanese jazz musicians tend to be confronted with an identity assignment based on their supposed ‘Japaneseness’ in order to prove the ‘authenticity’ of their creative approach. This identity assignment is generally associated with a devaluation of their ability to be original creators in their own right. The in-depth ethnographic survey carried out among Japanese jazz musicians since 2017 reveals musicians striving to escape the orientalisation of their creative approach. Admittedly, these musicians sometimes respond to this assignment of identity and put it forward for commercial purposes – by using a repertoire, an appearance, instruments or discourse that emphasise their supposed Japaneseness. But this strategy is usually instrumental and secondary. Instead, Japanese jazz musicians seek to assert themselves as creators of a universal art form. This paper aims to describe the ways in which these musicians escape the ‘Japonisation’ of their art through two original creative paths, which will then be presented in their social, sonic, visual and affective dimensions.

Akiko Hirai :
« La construction de l’identité aïnoue au travers des activités d’un musicien : Oki »
Les Aïnous, une des minorités du Japon, habitent principalement dans l’île septentrionale d’Hokkaidō. En entretenant des relations commerciales avec les ethnies voisines, la tradition des Aïnous a évolué par le croisement culturel. En 2019, la nouvelle Loi aïnoue a été promulguée afin de conserver leur coutume. Malgré les efforts étatiques et civiques, ces derniers font face à de grandes difficultés pour sauvegarder leur identité culturelle. Cependant, une nouvelle tendance émerge depuis la fin du 20^e siècle autour d’un musicien, Oki (1957- ). Ayant grandi en tant que Japonais, il a appris son origine vers l’âge de vingt ans. À l’âge de 33 ans, il commença à apprendre le tonkori, instrument à cordes des Aïnous. Il chercha un nouveau timbre grâce à la rencontre de l’instrument précité avec des styles relevant des musiques actuelles, comme le reggae dub. Récemment, il a collaboré avec des artistes de différentes zones géographiques, à savoir ; Misako Ōshiro (1936-2021) à Okinawa, Ikue Asazaki (1935- ) à Amami, et Kila (formé en 1987), groupe de musique celtique. Ses activités proposent la renaissance de la pratique instrumentale qui est en voie de disparition ainsi que l’évolution par le croisement musical. Cet exposé examine la construction de l’identité aïnoue au travers du tonkori, en appliquant une approche anthropologique. Son parcours musical sera retracé en prenant ses trois albums ; HANKAPUY (1998), Sakhaline Rock (2010), et Amamiaynu (2021).

Panel 3 – Représentations du média sonore / Representations of sound media (fr / eng)

Cléa Patin:
« Les stratégies d’internationalisation de Yamaha »
Dès la fin du 19^e siècle, le monde de la facture instrumentale au Japon se révèle fortement internationalisé : déjà, des réseaux de marchands et de facteurs d’instruments se tissent entre le Japon, les États-Unis, l’Allemagne et la Chine. Les technologies et les savoirs transitent d’un pays à l’autre, au fil des expatriations et des séjours d’études à l’étranger. Cependant, comment expliquer qu’une petite firme japonaise, sise au fin fond de Shizuoka, soit parvenue à contrôler entre 15 % et 20 % des parts du marché́ mondial ? En 2022, Yamaha Music peut encore s’enorgueillir d’un chiffre d’affaires de 1,89 milliards de dollars et semble ne pas avoir souffert de la crise Covid (nous assistons même à une légère augmentation des ventes en 2020). Sa notoriété lui permet de concurrencer de front le fleuron français de la facture instrumentale, Buffet Crampon, sur son propre terrain des instruments à vent, tout en occupant le marché chinois. Comment expliquer une telle force de frappe ? À l’heure où les industries culturelles se développent prioritairement sur des marchés de niche, comment la firme parvient-elle à éviter une spécialisation trop poussée, en restant présente sur toutes les branches et dans tous les niveaux de gamme du marché ? À travers des entretiens avec des facteurs et marchands d’instruments, ainsi qu’un retour dans les archives spécialisées du magazine Music Trades, nous nous attèlerons à décortiquer les stratégies de développement de Yamaha à l’international : vente différenciées en fonction des marchés (asiatique, européen et nord-américain), circulation de la seconde main, lutte contre la contrefaçon, gestion du changement des contraintes réglementaires concernant l’utilisation de certains matériaux (bois exotique, ivoire, etc.), rachat de marques (notamment Bösendorfer depuis 2008 pour les pianos), relocalisation d’une partie de la production pour s’assurer le maintien d’un savoir-faire haut de gamme, etc.

Mattia Merlini:
“Downplaying eclecticism: Traumatic transnational adaptations in Japanese video game music”
Japan is known worldwide for being one of the most prolific countries in video games production. But sometimes, in the struggle of making the games enjoyable by the widest audience possible, Western localisations of those products differ significantly from the original version – even in terms of music. As a matter of fact, there are several examples of Japanese video game soundtracks being edited, rearranged, or entirely replaced in Western editions. In this paper, I explore a selection of case studies of what I call “traumatic adaptations” of Japanese video game music in the West, focusing on how the typically Japanese trait of stylistic eclecticism gets lost in translation, usually to accommodate more “standard” or “Hollywoodian” choices. I thus address changes that can be as little as differences in the mixes of two versions of a track (e.g. the theme song “Kuroi uta” from Drakengard 3), or as big and comprehensive as in the cases of entire soundtracks being rearranged (e.g. Crimson Dragon) or even replaced with non-eclectic Western music (e.g. X-Kaliber 2097). This, I argue, configures eclecticism as an eminently Japanese-sounding musical trait, that sometimes ends up being disguised to create a final product sounding more familiar to Western listeners.

Sean O’Reilly:
“Sound effects cinema: Mid-1930s Japanese films and the surprising synthesis of silent and sound techniques”
In late 1935, precisely halfway through the 1930s and Japan’s lengthy transition to sound cinema, a curious musical comedy-style period drama, Enoken Plays Kondō Isami (Enoken no Kondō Isami), was released. The vaudevillian-style comedy poked fun at famous nineteenth century patriots, depicting them as buffoons for comic effect. But the comedy was not only visual in nature; indeed, film studios’ first successes earlier in the 1930s with sync-sound “talkies” had already begun to condition moviegoers to expect much of the fun to enter through the ears rather than the eyes. The film makes frequent use of aural gags, so it may come as a surprise to notice that several of its most dramatic sequences were shot silently, with nondiegetic background music added later. Is this, then, a true talkie or does it still have one foot in the silent era? In this paper, I argue that this film’s bold—and tongue-in-cheek—blending of both silent and sound film techniques is its greatest strength. Its success shows that Japanese cinema’s range of possibilities was greater in 1935, in this hybrid stage, than at any other time before or since.

Panel 4 – Le son dans l’histoire (fr)

Clara Wartelle:
« La discipline du corps en chanson »
La matière « chant scolaire » (shōka), devint obligatoire au Japon pour les six niveaux de l’école élémentaire à partir de 1907. Ses objectifs pédagogiques, ses méthodes et ses manuels furent élaborés au sein du bureau de l’Inspection de la musique (Ongaku torishirabe gakari), fondé en 1879 comme organe du ministère de l’Éducation. Inspiré du modèle américain, ce cours devint rapidement un enseignement auxiliaire à l’apprentissage de la langue, de l’histoire ou de la morale. Si la dimension artistique de la musique fut peu valorisée dans l’éducation musicale en milieu scolaire avant-guerre, les bénéfices de sa pratique dans le développement physique des enfants furent d’emblée avancés comme des arguments en faveur de son introduction dans le curriculum scolaire. Cette tendance, qui se renforça particulièrement à partir de 1931, peut être mise en parallèle avec ce qui s’observait dans un autre champ de la musique : celui de la chanson populaire. Par exemple, les « chansons à la mode » (ryūkōka), dont les années 1930 correspondent à leur âge d’or, comprennent un nombre remarquable de pièces vocales qui sur le plan formel empruntent au répertoire militaire, à l’image des marches (kōshinkyoku). Dans le cadre de cette communication, nous nous proposons de réfléchir aux différentes représentations du corps dans la chanson des années 1930, de l’enfance à la vie d’adulte, en analysant quelques formes musicales caractéristiques.

Guillaume Muller : 
« Du son pour tous ? L’espace des sirènes anti-aériennes durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale au Japon »
Durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le Japon s’est, comme les autres puissances engagées dans le conflit, doté d’un système de sirènes anti-aériennes destiné à prévenir la population de l’imminence de bombardements. Le son qu’émettaient ces sirènes reste familier de nos jours, notamment parce qu’il accompagne comme automatiquement la plupart des représentations cinématographiques de bombardements vus du côté des civils. Il fut à l’époque le fruit d’une nouvelle politique publique, lancée en réaction à une menace d’un genre inédit : les sirènes furent déployées comme un moyen moderne, efficace et normalisé de signaler à tous et simultanément l’imminence d’un danger lui-même moderne et anonyme. Nous souhaiterions ici revenir sur l’histoire de la mise en place et de la diffusion au Japons de ces systèmes d’information d’urgence : outre des aspects techniques encore peu connus (niveaux d’alerte, infrastructure, modalités d’activation), nous nous intéresserons particulièrement à la question du maillage du territoire, dans le cadre d’un empire constitué de colonies aux statuts différents (Okinawa, Taiwan, Corée, Mandchourie etc.) : la sirène passe outre les barrières linguistiques, mais procède-t-elle d’une hiérarchisation coloniale des espaces ? À une échelle plus locale, elle trace selon qu’elle est audible ou non les frontières de l’espace menacé ; à quoi ressemblerait une cartographie sonore du Japon en guerre ?

Panel 5 : Le son dans la représentation et la reproduction de la tradition / Sound in the representation and reproduction of tradition (fr /eng)

Andrea Giolai:
“Modernity, audile techniques, and Japanese court music in the Meiji period”
In 1959, the American ethnomusicologist Mantle Hood marveled at the “bi-musical” training of the gagaku musicians of the Imperial Household in Tokyo, who were among the first in Japan to undertake the study and performance of Western music of the classical period (Hood 1959). Gagaku performers’ impressive bi-musicality concerned more than mastering multiple instruments at once; it meant the rapid acquisition of new ways of hearing and listening to Japanese court music. This presentation explores the activities of Imperial Household musicians in the early years of the Meiji period, focusing on the development of specific “audile techniques” (Sterne) to demonstrate their impact on the portrayal of gagaku as a “traditional” performing art. I examine three intertwined case studies: the production of early phonographic recordings of gagaku, the subtle transnotation of the repertoire into staff notation, and the composition of new music for primary school education. My hypothesis is that the application of modern techniques of listening and music analysis made it possible to start hearing gagaku as “traditional Japanese music”. Retracing how gagaku was listened to during the Meiji period reveals the social function (and force) of culturally formed ways of listening, complicating the modern partition of Japanese music into Western (yōgaku) and traditional (hōgaku).

Céleste Gatier :
« Le son dans l’espace du thé : études acoustiques et transferts culturels »
Les interprétations contemporaines de l’architecture du thé et notamment de son espace s’appuient en majeure partie sur des théories énoncées autour des années 1930 par le célèbre architecte et historien japonais, Horiguchi Sutemi (1895-1984). Ces textes sont les premiers à révéler toute la valeur historique et architecturale de ce patrimoine. Horiguchi y expose également une notion philosophique, celle de « l’élan vital » (seimei 生命), qui serait fondamentale dans toute approche sensible de l’architecture du thé. Aujourd’hui, les études architecturales qui traitent des aspects sensoriels des pavillons du thé – et non pas de la cérémonie du thé – se concentrent sur l’atmosphère lumineuse. Ainsi l’ambiance sonore, c’est-à-dire l’acoustique du pavillon de thé n’est pas ou peu abordée dans les sciences humaines et sociales. Notre présentation explore cette voie en s’intéressant au patrimoine sonore et acoustique propre aux pavillons de thé, tant au Japon qu’en France. En comparant les mesures acoustiques que nous avons réalisées dans des pavillons japonais (et plus particulièrement dans le pavillon de thé de la villa Seifuso à Kyôto) et dans des pavillons japonisants (notamment le pavillon de thé du jardin Albert-Kahn à Boulogne-Billancourt), nous montreront que certaines spécificités de l’acoustique de ces architecture du thé contraignent notre appréhension spatiale et peuvent contribuer à éclairer l’histoire de certains transferts de ces pavillons en Occident. Nous montrerons également que cette approche sonore renvoie directement aux années 1950 et à un cortège de « nouvelles interprétations » liées à l’internationalisation de la cérémonie du thé et de la culture japonaise.

Yūsuke Wajima:
“Re-vernacularization of Bon odori in post 3.11 and COVID-19 Japan”
This presentation will analyze the reorganization of “Bon odori” (Bon dance) in modern Japan, focusing on what I would call “re-vernacularization” of the aftermath of 3.11 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally a diverse practice since medieval times, Bon odori, a ritual of ancestor worship in the Buddhist tradition, faced suppression during the late 19th-century modern nation-building, being labeled as “uncivilized.” In the 1930s, it became more standardized, linked with imperial Japan’s nationalism and influenced by the recording industry. Despite urbanization, it endured as a form of pseudo-folklore after World War II. The aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake brought new attention to Bon odori-inspired festivals, fostering community cohesion and commemoration, accompanied by innovative movements like the integration of anti-nuclear sentiments and the incorporation of DJ and band performances, in some cases emphasizing its continuity with festivals in other Asian and African regions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted these developments. Nonetheless, the pandemic increased the craving for physical proximity in social interaction as a response to enforced isolation, while also boosting online information sharing. Additionally, the disruption caused a generational shift, with the older generation relinquishing their role in organizing traditional local festivals, leading to an integration of the post-2011 “alternative” Bon odori elements to a more conventional form. The presentation will explore the historical changes in the expression and social functions of secular and religious music and dance of Bon odori.

Panel 6 : L’artiste et la représentation de son milieu / The artist and the representation of his environment (fr /eng)

Marin Escande:
« Group Ongaku et l’improvisaton automatique : le son comme objet »
Fondé au sein du studio d’ethnomusicologie de l’Université des arts de Tokyo au tournant des années 1960, Group Ongaku est souvent considéré comme le premier collectif bruitiste d’improvisation libre au Japon. Jouant avec toutes sortes d’instruments de musique et d’objets du quotidien, aussi bien dans les salles de concert qu’en extérieur, ses membres développèrent un mode particulier de performance inspiré de l’écriture automatique des surréalistes. Au concept d’objet sonore de Schaeffer, ils opposèrent l’expression « le son comme objet ». Derrière cette inversion logique se cache une réflexion profonde sur le phénomène acoustique et son inscription dans la vie de tous les jours. Comme l’écrit Labelle, le groupe explore pleinement l’« intensité localisée » des sons ; c’est-à-dire, au contraire de l’écoute réduite, son expressivité dans sa relation à un espace donné et l’immédiateté de sa production. En digne héritier des surréalistes, ils font une ethnographie du monde moderne questionnant les usages des objets issus de la modernité et les environnements sonores des nouveaux espaces urbains. Cette communication explorera les multiples facettes de cette philosophie du son liée à cette pratique singulière de l’improvisation en la repositionnant par rapport au surréalisme, mais aussi par rapport à des concepts plus contemporains et propres à la scène artistique japonaise comme celui d’environnement (kankyō).

Kenjirō Muramatsu :
« Le tournant de Hosono Haruomi vers la musique ambient dans les années 1980-1990 : concept de « kankō ongaku » (musique touristique) comme remise en question de la posture du créateur musical et de la relation homme-terre »
Haruomi Hosono (1947-) s’est profondément engagé dans la musique ambient dans les années 1980-1990 après ses activités dans plusieurs groupes de rock dans les années 1970 et la dissolution de son célèbre groupe techno-pop Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) en 1984. En examinant ses paroles, ses actions, ses écrits et ses œuvres, nous analyserons les facteurs de ce tournant et les styles qu’il a développés par la suite, en rapport avec le contexte social et historique du Japon marqué par une grande expansion économique et urbaine. En proposant le concept de « kankō ongaku » (musique touristique) à la place de « kankyō ongaku » (musique environnementale) en collaboration avec l’anthropologue Shin.ichi Nakazawa, l’artiste a pu redéfinir sa posture de créateur musical comme médiateur pour une ouverture vers la terre et/ou l’altérité, en dépassant celle du créateur de fiction.

Luca Proietti:
“Save the noise: Supportive acts and works in Japanese noise music in the COVID-19 pandemic”
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic not only disrupted our lives but placed challenges to overcome an unexpected event and find solutions to support and recover. Given the global emergency, it is natural to think how in the realm of the performing arts, the weight of this disruption has threatened the underground, leading artists, insiders, and fans to find the inspiration to carry on their activities or bring supportive intent to survive the crisis. Based on a research project focused on the cultural engagement of Japanese noise music, this paper delves into this experimental and subcultural scene to underline the means of survival that led the related acts to help and strengthen the local community in the face of the crisis and produce inspirational noise that can broaden globally. Considering findings from both online and in-person fieldwork, this paper will consider noise music albums directly inspired by the pandemic and the solutions that have been implemented by local venues with the help of the internet and technology (e.g. online concerts, Bandcamp profiles) to inquire about the preservation of the independent cultural and social identity of Japanese noise and how its existence goes hand in hand with the inner supportive and “healing” aspect of noise.

Panel 7 : Scènes musicales et représentations culturelles / Music scenes and cultural representations (fr / eng)

Tami Hashimoto:
“Gyaru and hip-hop: Shaping a sound-based identity”
With the rapid gain of popularity of Japanese hip hop, people are quick to assume that Japanese hip hop simply mimics American hip hop. Japanese female rappers have been especially controversial, sometimes accused of doing nothing more than imitating African American women’s performance. This paper challenges these assumptions by examining how Japanese female rappers have created their own “hip hop feminism.” This paper uses the music and music videos of recent Japanese female rappers, such as Awich and Zoomgals, to show how they are participating in a globalized anti-respectability politics, which in Japan has its roots in the emergence of gyaru culture in the early 2000s. This paper shows how American hip hop feminism –and especially its concerns with the “politics of female respectability”–have been adapted and transformed at the intersection of gyaru culture and contemporary Japanese female hip hop. Through song lyrics, music videos, and interviews with rappers and listeners, I demonstrate gyaru culture and its relationship with African American hip hop, and explore how sound shapes the identity of Japanese women on the margins of respectability in contemporary Japan.

Jérémie Poiroux & Dougal Shakespeare:
« La musique électronique à Tokyo : une scène (définitivement) analogique ? »
Pour le deuxième plus grand marché de la musique au monde, le Japon présente des caractéristiques contre-intuitives ; les ventes physiques y représentent encore près de deux tiers des ventes et la musique consommée est très largement locale (Bourdaghs, 2012). Notre projet adopte ce point de départ pour étudier une scène tokyoïte à cheval entre underground et mainstream ; celle de la musique électronique. D’une part, nous souhaitons confirmer (ou non) l’attachement au support physique (Bartmanski & Woodward, 2015 ; Farrugia & Swiss, 2005), et plus généralement aux techniques analogiques de création et de production du son, jusqu’au possible délaissement des plateformes de streaming (Manabe, 2016 ; Morris, 2020) et leurs algorithmes de recommandation. D’autre part, nous cherchons à comprendre « ce qui compte » pour les acteurs cette scène (Goldenzwaig & Åker, 2017 ; Grätz & Höppner, 2019). Quelles sont les motivations matérielles et symboliques des DJ, producteurs, labels, tourneurs, vendeurs de disques, bars et clubs, et représentants de plateformes de streaming ? Nous espérons ici vérifier le caractère insulaire de la consommation et de la production de musique électronique au Japon. L’étude commence par une enquête quantitative auprès de DJ tokyoïtes. Elle se poursuit par des entretiens avec les DJ intéressés et les acteurs avec lesquels ces derniers collaborent et se termine finalement avec une ethnographie de la scène (Novak, 2008). Notons qu’en parallèle, nous menons cette étude à l’identique à Berlin (Bader & Scharenberg, 2010 ; Condry, 2004 ; Garcia, 2016 ; Lange & Bürkner, 2013).

XU Shuqi:
“Collective euphony vs. individual expression: Contrasting sound politics in East Asian and Western popular music concerts”
The production and consumption of sound deeply reflect cultural contexts and societal power dynamics. Popular music concerts exemplify the stark divergences in sound practices across East Asian and Western spheres. This study conducts a comparative examination of the contrasting soundscapes and underlying sociocultural forces shaping these realms. East Asian concerts feature collective rituals like synchronized chanting and glow stick waving, creating highly unified aural experiences resonating with the region’s collectivist orientations and political overtones of marshaling masses. In contrast, Western performances tend to accentuate individual artistic expression, improvisational audience interactions, and an atmosphere celebrating personal liberties aligning with individualistic values. However, this dichotomy oversimplifies the complex interplay of collectivism and individualism across East Asian mainstream and underground music scenes, reflecting tensions of modernization. Simultaneously, emerging global cultural interdependencies challenge established boundaries around sound aesthetics and ideologies. Through contextual comparative analysis, this study elucidates how contrasting sound politics in live music events crystallize broader civilizational currents concerning group identities, authority structures and evolving sociocultural belief systems.

Panel 8 – Language and voice (eng)

Gala Maria Follaco:
“‘Did anyone hear what I said?’: Acting through sound in Higuchi Ichiyō’s writing”
My paper will examine aural representation in two short stories by Higuchi Ichiyō (1872-1896), “Yamizakura” (1892) and “Yamiyo” (1894). In these works, the author attaches multiple symbolic meanings to acoustic items such as sound and voices, giving the texts a multilayered structure, which conceals a secondary narrative of inequality, oppression, and a sense of inadequacy beneath the facts told. Endorsing scholarly work on Ichiyō from the last three decades (Seki 1997; Chida 2000; Minemura 2006; Compernolle 2006; Follaco 2020), which has brought her critical posture closer to the centre of research, particularly with regard to the ideology of risshin shusse, I will search within these two short stories, understudied thus far, for traces of her representation of the feminine and the poor as forgotten categories within the context of that powerful discourse on progress and social advancement. I will draw upon the ideas of major theorists of sound and voice in literature, primarily Mikhail Bakhtin and Adriana Cavarero, to show how Ichiyō identifies voice with agency, and the silencing of women and the poor, alongside their objectification through speech, the supreme form of repression.

Mari Matsutoya:
“Soft Voices for Hard Technologies”
The disembodied and synthesised female voice is expected to perform the security of the mother, allure of the lover, care of the nurse, submission of the assistant and act as a softening agent for hard and impenetrable technologies. When embodied, especially in caricature such as in manga or anime, they either wear aprons or school uniforms. Considering the female Japanese voice in popular culture, how does its synthesis – most often heard in voice assistants or guidance in shops and public services – reflect the current position of women in society, and how can these be subverted to pave the way for a more open, inclusive and respectful society. Although the perpetuation of gender bias in VAs has been proven in recent studies around the globe, the paper attempts to bring to light some of the historical and cultural particularities in Japan that renders the female-sounding synthesised voice as near default. As the language around technology also contributes to the entrenchment of the one-way gaze (male-female jacks for instance), we look toward cyberfeminist techniques of subversion to tap into and disrupt linear narratives of power and submission.

Lidiya Shamova & Satomi Ura:
“The music of words of Japan: The relationship between human language and music”
This study explores the possibilities of communication through music in Japan. The presented data is based on interviews in which the participants revealed their ideas about the relationship between human language and music. Their opinions are divided into groups regarding the number of languages they speak, their ability to play instruments, etc. The interviewees were asked to associate the main linguistic categories – noun (名詞) and verb (動詞) – with the sounds of piano. The Music of Words of Japan is part of an interdisciplinary comparative research that includes English, Spanish, Japanese and Bulgarian. The linguistic data was produced following interviews with 178 people from 23 countries, 54 of which are Japanese. In this research, uni-, bi-, and multidimensional lexical fields (as well as other linguistic categories) were represented through music signs. The findings lay the foundation of an original linguistic model for basic communication named Linguomusicology: The Music of Words (LMoW). LMoW is based on Saussure’s structuralism and the interdisciplinary approaches of Noam Chomsky. It relies on an original contribution to structural semantics provided by Eugenio Coseriu and his notion of Lexematics. The musical part is based on elementary music theory, and inspired by contemporary pianists and composers such as Ludovico Einaudi (Italy), Yiruma (South Korea) and Sofiane Pamart (France). Thus, the idea of this study is to deepen the understanding of the connections between language and music – broadening the possibilities of human communication across cultures.

Panel 9 – The agentivity of subjects listening to and producing sound (eng)

Rafal Zaborowski:
“Multivocality and the vocaloid fan canon”
In this paper I explore audience interactions and engagement with an emphasis on vocaloid idol fandom in Japan and the ways fans’ reflective media practices create new meanings and renegotiate old ones. Virtual performers, once considered a novelty, now firmly a well-established part of the global entertainment industry, have invited popular and professional debates on cultural value, corporality, and the future of music. Audiences and fans often remain overlooked in such discussions. To address this gap, I draw on empirical research conducted in Japan to navigate through the multifaceted landscape of vocaloid cultures. Theoretically, the paper confronts the concepts of canon and fanon (fan canon) from fandom studies with audience reception framework and theories of parasocial interaction – offering the concept of multivocality binding these threads together. Empirically, the paper stems from a decade of original research on listening in Japan, including surveys, textual analysis, interviews, and focus groups with Japanese audiences, producers, musicians and managers, but also field ethnography in music venues, at street performances, and during instances of everyday listening. Through my analysis of the data, I argue that the existence of canon and fan expectations shape the nature of social relationships formed between audiences and virtual artists, thereby opening (or closing) interpretive and creative opportunities for the audience to explore. I posit that fan interactions with virtual performers are multivocal: the lack of a dominant canonical voice combined with the virtuality of the artist and the possibility of participation in fanon aid media practices which foreground audiences’ voices and self-reflection. As technology continues to shape the boundaries between virtual and non-virtual entertainment, the paper emphasizes the importance of unravelling the complexities of multivocal virtual engagements for a comprehensive understanding of digital media audiences.

Maiko Nakamura:
“The absence and the existence of the self: The pleasure of listening to BL”
This presentation focuses on Japanese drama CDs, particularly BLCDs, and examines what sensation female audiences encounter through the experience of listening to them. Recently, voice comics in which professional voice actors deliver dialogue to manga have become popular. While the primary reason for this is to promote manga, and the growing popularity of voice actors also accounts for their success, particularly with female readers. This may be due to the popularity of drama CDs, and one of their longest-standing markets is BLCDs. BL is a male-male romance portrayed by women for women, but there is no presence of female readers’ self in the scene, and they even hope not to be part of it, which is contrary to other media, where the actors speak to the audience and communicate in an imaginary way. However, in the case of BLCDs, the reception of the audience through the act of listening intervenes in this process of interpretation. The readers, who do not exist in the act of reading, become active presence when listening to the CDs. I would like to clarify what this paradoxical physical experience brings about: while BL works have gained popularity through their adaptations, BLCDs are still niche and but disturb gendered Japanese market and readership.

Aya Hoshikawa: “
“Masculinities and femininities of Japanese singer-songwriters”
The purpose of my presentation is to examine the gender norms surrounding Japanese singer-songwriters in relation to discussions of masculinity and femininity. In (Hoshikawa, 2024), it was shown that Japanese female singer-songwriters are often assigned specific gender roles when communicating with male fans, and that the industrial structure of Japan’s unique performance space, live house, is behind this. One of the points to be reconsidered in my dissertation is the examination of the masculinity of male fans based solely on interviews with cisgender female singer-songwriters. The next aim of my research is to write by more complex way, multi-layered account of gender norms by incorporating the perspectives not only of cisgender female singer-songwriters, but also of live house workers, event organizers and fans themselves, regardless of gender. Raewyn Connell, for example, has argued that “hegemonic masculinity” legitimizes unequal gender relations and is reinforced within certain femininities (Connell, 1995; Hirayama, 2024). My recent research has found that young singer-songwriters in Japan face issues of gender norms regardless of their gender or performance space. At the same time, their fans are also asking themselves on a daily basis how they should gaze singer-songwriters and how they should behave. This presentation will explore the issues of gender norms in Japanese performance spaces.

Panel 10 – Sounds and nostalgia (eng)

Moritz Sommet:
“Re-sounding Shōwa: Ōtaki Eiichi’s A Long Vacation and nostalgia for 1980s Japan”
A prolific singer-songwriter and pop music producer throughout his life, Ōtaki Eiichi (1948-2013) has turned into a symbol of the late Shōwa era some ten years after his death. His bestselling A Long Vacation was one of the first Japanese albums released on compact disc and embodies significant changes in the music diffusion and listening practices of the early 1980s. Originally a creative engagement with Phil Spector’s wall of sound concept and the Japanese reception of American pop in the 1950s and 1960s, the album has since been re-issued several times and is now commonly associated with the sound of “City Pop,” a sonic representation of the supposed wealth and optimism of pre-bubble Japan. A Long Vacation has thus come to represent both the nostalgic perception of past sound and its potential for creative refiguration. In discussing the development of the multi-layered discourse surrounding the album, my paper aims to shed some light on recent sound-related shifts in retrospective views of the Shōwa era.

Benjamin Daniel Düster:
“Tomorrow on cassette: Japan’s tape jams in the new media age”
From the early to mid-2000s, cassette tapes appeared to be at the brink of extinction. Although there have been claims about a so-called “revival of the cassette” in mass media based on growing sales over the past decade, it becomes apparent that the format was never abandoned in Japanese DIY music scenes in the first place. Drawing on extensive interviews conducted in Japan from 2018-2019 with more than 30 musicians, label and shop managers, I demonstrate that the current significance of cassettes in Japan’s multi-layered music landscape ranges from cultural currencies in DIY music scenes to merchandise for major label re-releases and events such as the annual Cassette Store Day. While cassette’s multi-layered occurrences demonstrate that it is far from being dead and gone, this paper explores it as a hybrid format for music production, consumption and distribution in the new media age.

Panel 11 – Sound and representation of social space (eng)

Elena Claver Hernàndez:
“Recorded sound and the development of ideological control: Changes in Japanese cinema since 1931”
The screening of the first proper Japanese “talkie” film, The Neighbor’s Wife and Mine, in August of 1931 took place barely a month before the Invasion of Manchuria. From that point onwards, while silent movies were slowly being abandoned, Japanese cinema suffered increasing vigilance and censorship from the military and bureaucrats which reached its peak during the WW2. Without claiming this process to be the ultimate consequence of the introduction of recorded sound in films, this paper aims to explore how the development of the “talkies”—just as other sound-based mass-media communication devices like the radio—facilitated the task of controlling Japanese cinema and gearing it towards a propagandistic function. The disappearance of the benshi, which could reframe the visual plot through their live performance, put an end to one of the strategies to oppose governmental control. The decline of the jidai-geki, whose focus was on its visual potential, marks the transition towards “realism”: newsreels and documentaries of the battlefront, narrated by personalities of the Army and surrounded by “true” explosion sounds and climatic music.

Alexander Murphy:
“The ear is a weapon: Soundscapes of racial violence in Tokyo, 1923”
In the wake of the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923, a raft of virulent rumors spread throughout the Tokyo metropolitan area accusing ethnic Korean residents in the city of conspiring with political dissidents to sow violence amidst the chaos of the quake’s aftermath. These rumors, while groundless, prompted a loose coalition of police, reservist soldiers, and vigilantes to massacre thousands of Koreans alongside Chinese labor migrants and other suspected political agitators. In seeking to apprehend “Korean malcontents” (futei senjin), however, these groups faced the problem of being unable to generally distinguish between Korean and Japanese denizens through visual appearance. As a solution, bands of self-appointed inquisitors subjected passersby to ad-hoc pronunciation tests to identify, through accent and intonation, the colonial dissidents in their midst. In this paper, I address this brutal episode in Japan’s interwar history as a distinct instance of sonic terror, in which the weaponization of listening turned vocal sound into a site of encoding and enacting racialized violence against the colonized. At the same time, I argue that these voice tests served an instrumental (if disavowed) role in reasserting the sensuous boundaries of the imperial social order—as a primal scene in dividing the self-apparent national body from the voices that constituted its surplus.

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Voir aussi:

“Faire parler le son”: https://mshbordeaux.hypotheses.org/12079
Par Chiharu Chûjô (IETT, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3) et Jeremy Corral (D2IA, Université Bordeaux Montaigne).

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