[NetBehaviour] Uyghur, Homage, Insufficient

[Alan Sondheim]

Uyghur, Homage, Insufficient

http://www.alansondheim.org/forUyghur1.jpg
https://youtu.be/VQZXL2G1VvE Uyghur, Homage, Insufficient
https://youtu.be/BEU1Ppc0V2w preparation for the above
http://www.alansondheim.org/forUyghur2.jpg

The instrument I'm playing is a Uyghur dutar, two strings which
I've tuned in unison. The condition of the Uyghur in China is
terrible; people are forcibly taken to detention camps; what
happens within them seems to be on the order of the old Soviet
re-education combined with murderous brutality. The number of
people detained may be over a million. Among others, Uyghur
musicians have disappeared and are feared dead. I set here in
the states and contemplate this. I know we all do. I know we all
think about this. I know we all care. I improvised in honor and
despair. i was thinking of a particular video in which a famous
musician talks about being alive. That is no guarantee that he
is still alive. I was thinking of his expression and his face,
his mien, while I played. I made a short video of the setup
which I'm also putting up. The music I play is taut; my hands
say more or less in the same position up the neck. I realize
everything I do here is useless, presumptuous. Every instrument
we own has a history. This dutar is from a shop in Kensington
Market, Toronto. It's medium-sized but small in relation to the
others I saw. Music for me is a different form of expression in
which the body curls around itself in affect. A metaphor might
be the Klein bottle. The music I play repeats itself. I can hear
my own project through it. It does nothing else. It is a form of
thinking, a form of thought. It cannot help the Uyghur, it
cannot help anything. My own awareness. What I do here is play
and try not to be pretentious. A form of obeisance. It is never
enough to say we should love.