Sound Remains

Curated by Leonardo Cardoso

Sound Remains is conceived as a space for listening within the larger Spectral Remix exhibition—a “sound section” that brings together the sonic, the material, and the performative. While the rest of the installation is not “mute,” this area foregrounds sound as a distinctive way of thinking through remix: how it travels, reverberates, and takes shape across different media and research practices.

Sound offers unique possibilities for multimodal inquiry. DJs remix records, radio transmits through space, and the act of transduction itself unsettles assumptions about presence, immersion, and authorship. Drawing inspiration from these processes, Sound Remains gathers five soundworks that engage diverse soundscapes—from Indonesian popular music to the early morning city sounds of Gulu, Uganda—and varied modes of transmission, from field recording to live radio.

Each artist works within the tension between the audio recording as artifact and sound’s ephemerality. In moving from fieldwork to installation, these pieces establish auditory bridges between research and exhibition, creating zones of dialogical listening that resonate within and between them.

Non-Alignment Dub: Remixing the Indonesian Sixties

David Novak (University of California, Santa Barbara)
This work traces the “versioning” of popular music in 1960s Indonesia alongside the politics of non-alignment at the end of the Sukarno era. Through dubbed cassette tapes of archival recordings, Novak reflects on how Indonesian musicians remade Western pop within shifting regimes of censorship and control.

Remixing the Storied City

Kaunda Keeneth (Doctor Kaunda), Nyeko Simon Peter (Producer Usaih), David Bright (formerly Black de Massacre), Otim Daniel (Melix Skillz), Joella Bitter (University of Rochester)
When a visa denial prevented an in-person collaboration in Rochester, the artists reimagined Remixing the Storied Cityvirtually. The work explores how sound, scholarship, and creativity persist across borders, turning interruption and absence into conditions for making and listening together.

Lima / Lira / João

Daniel Sharp (Tulane University)
Three voices animate the city of Arcoverde, Pernambuco: Lima, the announcer of death notices; Lira, the singer who carries the city’s voice across Brazil; and João, the self-taught “information man.” Each voice reclaims public space and authority, revealing how sound and technology shape urban life.

The Senescent Scientist (Listening to Loss)

Alexandra Hui (Mississippi State University)
Sound piece by Scott Sommerville
Inspired by a 1930s birder who described “losing the bird songs” as his hearing faded, this piece listens to aging and sensory loss as forms of transformation. Through textures of absence and adaptation, it reflects on how the world is continually remade through the changing act of listening.

Funk Montagem: Remixing Afro-Latinx Sound in Rio de Janeiro

Alexandra Lippman (Pomona College)
Funk Montagem traces the remixing of Black and Latinx dance music that shaped funk carioca in Rio’s peripheries. Drawing from her fieldwork and the compilation Funk Power, Lippman explores how DJs and producers turned global sounds into local expressions of identity and resistance.

Campus Polyphonicus

Leonardo Cardoso (Texas A&M University)
Recorded during protests surrounding Richard Spencer’s 2016 visit to Texas A&M, this interactive piece invites listeners to move through multiple soundscapes—chants, conversations, and moments of tension—revealing the shifting acoustic textures of dissent and the politics of listening in public space.