{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"hearthis.at","provider_url":"https:\/\/hearthis.at","height":"150","width":"100%","title":"The Colonisation Of Language : A Phraseology in Five Parts (2025)","description":"\u2018The Colonisation of Language : A Phraseology in Five Parts\u2019 explores aspects of oral storytelling and how the influence of colonisation can corrupt language and the sense of an origin story through multiple iterations over time. \r\n\r\nIn much of my sound work, I\u2019m drawn to the spoken word and was immediately drawn to the characteristics within the vocal utterances contained in the 1962 original field recording as assigned by Cities and Memory from the Pitt Rivers Museum Ethnographic Sound Archive by Raymond Clausen of a Navel-Miel performance accompanied by shaken rattles and seed pods from Malekula, Vanuatu. \r\n\r\nSelecting snippets of these utterances with some of the percussive elements, I created a speculative language to run alongside the opening paragraph of the Brothers Grimm tale, Rapunzel (1812). I assigned an utterance to each word in the story and developed a version of this story \u2018spoken\u2019 in this speculative language. Distinct phrases contained within the original narration are repeated and \u2018corrupted\u2019 through unlikely juxtapositions of these set phrases over the length of the work. \r\n\r\nI chose Rapunzel as my source tale due to its allusion to industry and exploitation, especially within its opening paragraphs, as both key activities of colonial intervention. Although the tale of Rapunzel can be read through many lenses, this selection, I felt was critical to situate the conceptual approach of the composition more solidly within this framework of intention. Further to this, I included the familiar Western story-telling trope, \u201cOnce upon time\u201d, which doesn\u2019t appear in Rapunzel\u2019s original form, to open each of the five parts. The voice which narrates the opening of Rapunzel in English, is an AI-generated voice.\r\n\r\nAll instrumentation, apart from the AI-generated narration, is sourced directly from the original 1962 field recording and modified through extensive processing and effects. No DAW stock beats or sounds were used in the composition. \r\n\r\nOn reflection, incorporating AI into this work, also adds another layer of critique to \u2018The Colonisation of Language : A Phraseology in Five Parts\u2019. Using the opening paragraphs and set phrases of Rapunzel as my language model, also interrogates AI\u2019s compilation process and the corruption of meaning when AI is forced to draw on a singular set language model for its output. It raises the question of How many iterations from a set model, does it take AI to output only diabolical errors in sense and meaning, thereby compromising the integrity of heritage? \r\n\r\nThe whole \u2018A Century of Sounds\u2019 project (original source material and re-imagined compositions) can be accessed here : https:\/\/citiesandmemory.com\/century-sounds\/\r\n\r\nKenneth Lyons \u2028December, 2025","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/img.hearthis.at\/4\/3\/5\/_\/uploads\/10526392\/image_track\/13932164\/w1200_h628_q70_ptrue_v2_m1772368690----cropped_1772368684534.jpg?m=1772368690","thumbnail_width":1200,"thumbnail_height":628,"html":"