Mutating Traditions

The third issue of tekhnē journal explores a new thematic strand by CTM Festival, titled Resynthesising the Traditional, which aims to cultivate artistic practice, research, and exchange on how to critically engage with sonic/artistic heritage, folklore, situated knowledge, customs, contexts, technologies, and other aspects of “the traditional.” Confronting conservative views of tradition as something frozen, solidified, and generally untouchable, the featured articles all explore (re)connection to past aesthetics and forms within diverse political contexts, and echo in various ways how technologies are bound into their ongoing transformation.

In the shadows of a fraught political landscape reshaping cultural identity through a nationalist lens, Slovakia's experimental music scene confronts its roots, rethinks tradition, and reimagines folklore for a fractured present. Theorist and artist Ján Solčáni speaks to several actors and initiatives on the scene who reinterpret the sounds of the past.

Bodies writhing to rhythms, the mind locked onto a spiritual journey, the sound relentless and seductive at the same time. It could be a metal mosh pit or site of regional ceremonies. Tracing the intersections between two extreme sonic worlds—the traditional trance ceremonial réak and metal—the musician and researcher Luigi Monteanni examines how a localised traditional sound and a contemporary global genre have influenced each other in West Java, creating unlikely alliances in the ongoing resistance to cooptation by neoliberal politics.

Caribbean-Canadian artist and researcher and "Femmehall" practitioner Alanna Stuart explores how one can resynthesize sound system technologies and redraw the traditionally male-dominated sound system culture. Her deeply personal research takes her back to her family’s roots in Jamaica, the birthplace of sound system culture, and focuses on how contemporary queer and female communities in Toronto – home to the third largest Jamaican diaspora – are actively shaping the heritage of sound system culture across various generations.

The Qazaq poet and creative producer Anuar Duisenbinov speaks to intergenerational voices in Qazaqstan’s music and art community who each in their own way connect to traditional musics and forms. Through discussions with Yermek Kazmukhambetov, Tokzhan Karatai, Saida Yelemanova, SAMRATTAMA, and Medina Bazarğali we hear of spirituality and landscape; of history, colonisation, and archives; of how traditions are shaped and transmitted in aural cultures; and how all of this might extend into contemporary, pop, and club cultures. Throughout the article, Qazaq terms are often offered in Qazaq cyrillic, transliterated into latin script, and described in English, reflecting the complex history of the Qazaq language, which was written in various scripts at different times.