Borders, Bells
- Listen
Audio assignment
Field recordings, vocals
After the 2008 August war between Georgia and Russia, the political border on the Caucasus mountain range tightened and became subject to strict control. However, prior to the conflict, villages and communities situated around the borders had cultivated relationships in response to geographical challenges, a harsh climate, and similar environmental adversities, regardless of their political affiliations. Villages from Khevi (the Georgian side) would connect with those in Chechnya (the Russian side) while tending to their cattle. When necessary and convenient, they would engage in the exchange of cattle around the glaciers of the Caucasus mountain range, given the differing climates experienced by both sides during various seasons. Furthermore, the communities even used various shapes of bells to mark their cattle, making the animals more recognizable and accessible from far distance.
In the composition “Borders, Bells,” I examined the cultural and ecological context of the cowbell sound as a material that played a pivotal role in shaping, connecting, and building relationships across both sides of the glaciers. I interpreted the sound as a communal belonging—an independent sonic world that channels and preserves relationships between cultural groups while bearing witness to ecological, political, and cultural conflicts. By stretching, pitching and multiplying the field recording materials I came with the intention to emphasize the space and time, diversity of bell sounds and their interaction with the folk soundscape - Georgian and Russian atonal mixture sung by myself.
Presently, the bell sound persists alongside the melting glaciers of the Caucasus. Although the stringent political border has significantly impacted the daily function of this sound, its geographic and cultural context.
The attached visuals: cowbell varieties I found in Georgian bazaar
Film photo: cattle, Dusheti, 2020
Excerpt from 3D map traveling for better understanding the Geography of the described area
Dava
Experimental musician and multimedia artist working with field recordings, sound art and abstract sound sources. Her sonic trajectory repurposes the form of IDM, electronic avant-garde via storytelling and political lyricism to create a musical language used as a tool that expresses the resistance of the contemporary Georgian society in the post-soviet context.