Zbigniew Białas
The Mummified Voice:
Texans Bring the Phonograph to the “Bushmen”
In 1925 an expedition was sent out by the University of Denver with a view to making a cinematographic record of nomadic reality. Apart from filming, the expedition members took exhaustive notes concerning the life of the “Bushmen.” Because the expedition explored the Kalahari Desert when America and Europe was enjoying the phonographically-crazed ragtime era, the new set of beads to impress the natives, the icon of the civilized world was the phonograph. In confrontation with the phonograph, which functioned as “portable Unheimlichkeit,” the “Bushmen” localized and territorialized the voice on the strength of synecdochical strategy: the voice evokes the head. It does not matter whether the synecdochical potential was stressed to the limit. This essay deals with the confrontation between the temporary voiceless body of the traveler, the temporarily voiceless body of the “Bushman” and the enigmatic bodiless voice. The overall aim is to disclose how both the “Bushmen” and the travelers regulate their interpretations and while doing so in equal measure suffer from interpretosis.
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No. 24/25 (2012)
Published: 2012-01-01
10.31261/errgo
English
Język Polski