Thesis
The Oweds
- Abstract:
-
The Oweds map my process, journey and evolution as a cultural producer since beginning the DPhil in October 2016.
What has been presented is just a small portion my ongoing, over-arching, ever-expanding series of live and recorded, polyphonic, audio-visual, episode-compositions, my body of work: The Oweds.
The title articulates the ancient Greek ‘ode’ oscillating with the chosen punning signifier ‘owed’ to capitalise on the reparative debt (cultural and financial) signified by my core aim: decolonisation.
Owed to Survivance grounds the necessity of the research and deploys the most scripted, least improvised host-voice, developed from my broadcast practice outside the institution.
Owed to Mundana oscillates between its archaic Latin definition meaning: ‘of the universe, celestial’, with its contemporary definition of ‘banal, everyday’, predominantly utilising informal conversation, personal voicenotes and fragments of mine and others’ public articulations - both scripted and improvised.
Owed to Humana (1.0) meditates on and imagines Other ways to view the world, travelling far out to the metaphor of Pluto and its five moons, mapping, giving metaphysical vision to ideas of decolonisation.
Owed to Humana 2.0 synthesises all the preceding voices, methodologies, compositional techniques, and expands the thesis sonically to include considered shifts of frequencies, to speak more profoundly to the body of the listener.
Owed to Diaspora(s) transmits psychedelic layered archival imagery set to original multi-instrumental scores.
Utilising the methodology of audio and visual sampling - displacing tracks, footage, voices, from their original context, The Oweds produces and extrapolates nuanced connections between the displaced peoples of the (African) diaspora, and the production, absorption, and transmission of sound(s). This is used to aid the survivance of diasporic individuals operating within the contemporary global socio-political backdrop of unprecedented race tension.
The Oweds are intentionally cosmic, immersive, embodied, overwhelming experiences in order to reflect the immeasurable content of the contemporary diaspora’s articulations of decolonisation through sonic healing praxis, therefore, I have composed a rich symphonic delivery of my thesis, which totals almost seven hours of audio and audio-visual material.
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Authors
Contributors
- Institution:
- University of Oxford
- Division:
- HUMS
- Department:
- Ruskin School of Art
- Role:
- Supervisor
- ORCID:
- 0000-0003-2171-2595
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0505m1554
- Grant:
- 360806
- DOI:
- Type of award:
- DPhil
- Level of award:
- Doctoral
- Awarding institution:
- University of Oxford
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Subjects:
- Deposit date:
-
2025-07-25
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Hannah C Jones
- Copyright date:
- 2021
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