What The Sound Carries: Raven Chacon

Today we have the chance to speak with Raven Chacon, and to learn more about the experiences that have shaped his work across a variety of forms – from his music compositions, to his visual scores and installations, through to his leadership in the Native American Composer Apprentice Project and his piece American Ledger No. 2, currently on view at the Plains Art Museum. 

Raven Chacon's artist site:
http://spiderwebsinthesky.com/

This conversation moves across an array of lands and traditions– from Navajo Nation to Aristotle’s Lyceum, from string quartets to heavy metal – and a presence that connects many of the pieces Raven discusses is his time as a guest with the Water Protectors at Standing Rock in 2016. Afterwards, he reflected on the experience, he wrote this: 

“The camps became the imagined microcosm of a North America where we were still the majority, self-sustained and self-governed, no other direct action than simply being alive and retaining our ways. What became apparent—even in the short time I was there and under the shadow of militaristic surveillance—was a shared experience: remembering one’s identity, while at the same time re-imagining who we aimed to be. What was achieved there was not a funneling of a pan-Indian sameness, but rather a radial explosion of every potential dreamt history.”

Raven Chacon is a composer, performer and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. As a solo artist, collaborator, or with the Postcommodity, he has exhibited or performed at a wide range of institutions and spaces including the Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Chaco Canyon, and The Kennedy Center. Every year, he teaches 20 students to write string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP). Raven is the recipient of the United States Artists fellowship in Music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, and the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition.

Works and connections mentioned in this episode:

// Native American Composers Apprentice Project (excellent feature here by NPR Performance Today):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0U_C2iKIGY

// An Anthology of Chants Operations LP:
https://ravenchacon.bandcamp.com/album/an-anthology-of-chants-operations

// The Ears Between Worlds are Always Speaking installation in Athens, Greece:
http://www.postcommodity.com/TheEarsBetweenWorlds.html

// Dispatch, a collaboration with Candice Hopkins:
https://disclaimer.org.au/contents/unsettling-scores/dispatch

// STTLMNT, An Indigenous Digital World Wide Occupation:
https://www.sttlmnt.org/

// American Ledger No. 2:
http://spiderwebsinthesky.com/portfolio/items/american-ledger-no-2/

// For Zitkála Šá series of prints at Crow's Shadow Institute for the Arts
https://crowsshadow.org/artist/raven/

// Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hungry-listening

// Radio Alhara:
https://worldwidefm.net/show/ww-palestine-radio-alhara

 

Episode Transcript

Matthew Fluharty (00:06):
Hello, you're listening to high
visibility.
This is a podcast produced byart of the rural Plains Art
Museum welcomes intoconversation artists, culture
bearers and leaders from acrossrural American Indian country.
It's offered in conjunction withhigh visibility, collaboratively

(00:28):
curated exhibition, currently onview at Plains Art Museum
through May 30 2021. My name isMatthew Fluharty. And I'm
organized.
In the months ahead, I'll bewith you, along with other posts
from the Plains Art Museum.
As we share the richly divergentstories, lived experiences and
visions, folks across the con.

(00:52):
You can learn more about thehigh visibility exhibition by
heading to plains art.org.
We also welcome folks to checkout the High Visibility site at
in high visibility.org, where weoffer show notes and
transcriptions alongside furtherinformation on the individuals
and work discussed here.
Also, depending on the podcastplatform, one can view and

(01:15):
directly link to artists workwhile following along to the
conversation.
We're grateful for the supportof the Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts, and theNational Endowment for the Arts
in making this endeavorpossible. And we welcome folks
to check out and subscribe tothese conversations on their
favorite podcast platforms.

(01:36):
Today, we have the chance tospeak to Raven Chacon and to
learn more about the experiencesthat have shaped his work across
a variety of platforms. From hismusic compositions to his visual
scores and installations throughto his leadership and the Native
American composer apprenticeproject, and his peace American
legend number two, currently onview at the Plains Art Museum.

(02:01):
Along the way, we also have theopportunity to sit and listen
with Raven, as he shares thestories and creative practices
behind his recently released andhighly acclaimed album, an
anthology of chants operations.
so grateful for ravens time andgenerosity.
This conversation moves acrossan array of lands and

(02:22):
traditions, from Navajo Nationto Aristotle's Lyceum. From
string quartets to heavy metal,and a presence that connects
many of the pieces Ravendiscusses his his time as a
guest with the Water Protectorsat Standing Rock in 2016.
Afterwards, when he reflected onthe experience, he wrote this,
the camps became the imaginedmicrocosm of North America,

(02:46):
where we were still themajority, self sustained and
self governed no other directaction than simply being alive
and retaining our ways.
What became apparent even in theshort time I was there, and
under the shadow of militaristicsurveillance was a shared
experience remembering one'sidentity, while at the same time

(03:08):
reimagining who we aimed to be.
What was achieved, there was nota funneling of a pan Indian
sameness, but rather a radialexplosion of every potential
drempt history.
Raven Chacon is a composer,performer and installation
artist from Fort defiance NavajoNation.

(03:28):
as a solo artist collaborator orwith the post commodity
collective, he has exhibited orperformed in a wide range of
institutions and spaces,including the Whitney Biennial,
documenta 14, the San Franciscoelectronic music festival, Chaco
Canyon, and the Kennedy Center.
Every year, he teaches 20students to write string

(03:50):
quartets for the Native Americancomposer apprenticeship project.
Raven is the recipient of theUnited States artists fellowship
and music, the creative capitalaward in Visual Arts, the native
arts and cultures foundationartists fellowship, and the
American Academy's Berlin prizefor music composition.

(04:11):
So without further ado, pleaseget comfortable and enjoy our
conversation with Raven shuckin.
Raven, welcome to the highvisibility podcast. It's a real
honor to have you with us.

Raven Chacon (04:22):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Matthew Fluharty (04:24):
It's an honor to have you with us and also an
honor and have American legendnumber two, on view at the
Plains Art Museum right now forthe high visibility exhibition.
And I'm grateful for our timetogether to sort of think about
that work, but also think abouthow it's situated in the larger
arc of your life's journey inyour creative practice. so

(04:45):
grateful again for your time.
You know, and I'm what I'mwondering just as a way to kind
of settle into the conversationis just sort of asking, like,
Where did you grow up and whatwere some of the early
experiences, early influencesthat you had
Your own developing evolvingprocess as an artist.

Raven Chacon (05:05):
Well, I grew up in a town called Chinle, which is
right in the middle of theNavajo reservation.
I lived there for about thefirst six, seven years of my
life. And that's the place whereI'm my mother's from. And my
father's from northern NewMexico. And so, around that time
ofsix or seven, the family decided

(05:26):
to move to Albuquerque. And I'velived in Albuquerque, most of my
life, I would say I, I call thatmy permanent home. But a lot of
my my mom's side of the familylives still out and chinley and
chinley is a place I visit atleast once a year. I mean,
definitely, definitely more whenI can, when I go teach the

(05:47):
students for the Native Americancomposer apprenticeship project,
right teaches kids to writestring quartets at the at the
high school there and traveledto, you know, some of the other
high schools on the NavajoNation and Hopi nation. But, I
mean, obviously, it's a veryrural place. It's

(06:10):
it's a desert, much like therest of Arizona and New Mexico.
And there wasn't a lot of Imean, I don't know how much a
young kid gets exposed to musicand art anyway. But
really, what there was, was, youknow, the radio, and a lot of

(06:32):
family members listening toheavy metal, you know, hard rock
and anything with guitars. So Ithink that definitely had a
musical influence on me and insome way.
In addition to that, my mygrandpa, he's, he sings a lot,
he's, he sings all the time,Navajo songs. I think that too,

(06:54):
you know, I think I thinkrecognizing,
making music was was thereimmediately, and just listening.
So it wasn't till later on,though. And when the family
moved to Albuquerque, that I wasstudying piano, we had a piano
teacher, and that gave me moreof a basis of this kind of

(07:16):
formal music education. I mean,I still play piano to a bit, you
know, to a degree, but what itdid give me is this
understanding of notation andunderstanding maybe how the
other instruments work, youknow, this kind of grid of
notes, the scale, you know, ledme to think about playing the
guitar, strings, otherinstruments.

(07:37):
And same time to you know,eventually wanting to form some
kind of band, heavy metal bandor something, you know, thrash
metal band, and, and it just notcoming out, right, it's sounding
like noise, you know, and someof that, due to just the quality
of instruments I had, you know,you don't, you don't know how to
replace a string or something.
So you justput the wrong string on the

(08:00):
guitar, tie them together, andit starts at sounds really,
really bad. But you just keepgoing and sounds like, it sounds
like something you never heardbefore. And I think more than
anything that kind of stuck withme that the music can be
abrasive can it cannot fit intoa meter. Granted, I was trying
to play maybe a meter trying toplay virtuosic players, but but

(08:23):
now it's like, yeah, the stringbecomes really loose and, and
doesn't sound normal. And Ijust, I just like that sound.
And and so later than, yes, Idecided to study music formally
in the university, and figuredout what I was doing. Just for
the sake of this conversation asan educational document that

(08:46):
folks will hopefully come backto, when they're seeking to
learn more about your work. Whatwas the first heavy metal band
that you were in? I mean, thenames are so juvenile, I'm
embarrassed to say but and it'sthe kind of thing where you
know, a few of you in the groupor in the neighborhood do
something and you call it onething and a different

(09:07):
configuration happens and youcall it something else. But you
know, I'm to be honest with you,I'm to kind of kind of too
embarrassed to say these names,because I trace it back.
But yeah, they're very juvenileugly names, but it's even more
tantalizing that

Matthew Fluharty (09:27):
we're left in the space of Unknowing.

Raven Chacon (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, they're, they're bad. They were
bad. But eventually, there wasone I did called low
subliminals. And that was like,it was like, I don't know, like
this kind of like surf music,but, but all of us were
interested in like thrash metal.
So it sounded very, you know,experimental in that way that it

(09:50):
was, it was trying to be veryfast, but it didn't, we didn't
distort the guitars, you know,the speed picking, and I still
playI actually still play with those
musicians. Now we have a bandcalled tenderizer. We still make
music together. But we also makeexperimental improvised music in
Albuquerque. And I've beenplaying with these guys for
Yeah, like 25 years or so.

(10:14):
And from the beginning, were yousort of the individual in the
group who was recording andthinking about the sort of the
sound document as well for forthese performances,
maybe we, I have to find someold tapes, we did make, you
know, take a like Walkmanrecorder out there. I mean, we
this was the other part of thiswas, sometimes we wouldn't have

(10:36):
a place to play. So we woulddrive out to the west side of
Albuquerque, there's this kindof Cliff that just drops off.
And there's these sand dunes.

Matthew Fluharty (14:29):
Yeah, thank you. I'm really left with that
sense of how sound would echoacross that space in
in western Albuquerque.
I mean, this is an aside but manlike the basement punk shows in
the Midwest are like the exactopposite. It's just like total
Yeah, notice.

(14:51):
Yeah. I can only I can only hearthe one year
is because of those because ofthose experiences.
But Returning to the podcast,I think that's an element of
your work that I think feelsreally notable for a lot of
folks who,who write and write about the

(15:12):
wide array of practices that youhave is that there is.
I mean, what's interesting to meis that I'm about to use words
to explain genres of music.
And something about just the waythat

(15:36):
as a whole sort of body of workyour practice exists, is that I
think it often for me, as asingle listener, asked me to
challenge what my, my even mylinguistic associations are with
specific genres, you know, andthat those genres themselves can
be oftentimes described in waysthat are really reductive and

(15:56):
kind of close off, the sorts oflike,
flood tunnels between ways ofhearing and ways of playing. And
a kind of an element of that,that I'm really interested in
learning more about is thatthere are these various forms of
sound installations and musicand performance elements in your

(16:16):
work. And you're also an activecentral participant in the
Native American composerapprentice project.
You know, so we're talking aboutthose early experiences that you
had as an artist. And in thatthere's an organism you're
working in where you're, you'realso not only giving back to the

(16:37):
community, but you're a mentor,you know, that there's a cycle
to this creative practice inyour work that is generative in
so many regards. So how did yourengagement with kneecap that's
the acronym? Um, how did thatbegin?

Raven Chacon (16:53):
Well, it it had started in the year 2000, the,
the kneecap program, and it wasa part of the world still is a
part of the Grand Canyon MusicFestival, which has been going
on since the 80s or so.
Or, you know, every summer theygo and put on a big Chamber
Music Festival and on the Rim ofthe Grand Canyon, and around the

(17:18):
year 2000, they realized theyshould have some kind of
community engagement. Sothankfully, they thought thought
about that and started thisprogram, just with one high
school teaching Tuba City thingwas Tuba City High School.
And had collaborated with thecomposer Brent Michael Davids,

(17:39):
who is Mohican composer. And sohe, I give him credit for
founding that, that project. AndI think he only did it for one
year with five students. And insubsequent years, they had other
composers, some native, some notcoming out to that place. And I

(17:59):
had become on the radar around2003 2004. I think maybe Brent
recommended me.
And it,it worked out great, because I
mean, I'm sure they were doing agreat job, but I'm from this
community. So I definitely knowwhere the students live, what

(18:20):
the conditions are, can speaktheir language to an extent. I
mean, I'm talking both DNAlanguage and, and the language
of, I don't know, heavy metal,which is what the kids are still
listening to out there. Youknow, and yeah, I went, I mean,
I gotta be honest, I didn'tquite know what it was. either.
I knew the project was to writestring quartets, but didn't

(18:42):
really know who the hostorganization was, or what the
audience still was going to be,you know, we think of a concert
at the Grand Canyon. And I'mthinking, well, maybe we're just
playing for tourists at theGrand Canyon. And so always
skeptical of that kind of thing.
And I said, I told theorganizers, I said, I would like

(19:05):
to do this, but I want to expandit and have one of the schools
be chinley High School, youknow, where I grew up. And, you
know, for the reasons I alsojust want an excuse to go visit
my grandma, you know, they hangout and, and cousins. And so
that that's been it every yearsince then. So this is year 17.

(19:29):
But some beautiful things havehappened. We've been able to
expand the project at its peakwas servicing seven schools, I
think, you know, five on theNavajo Nation, one at the Hopi,
the Hopi High School on Hopination and salt river Pima High
School down near Scottsdale.
Scottsdale is is originally Pimaland. And I think at its peak

(19:53):
Yeah, we had like almost 40students one year, each writing
a three minute composition,which was totally intense for
me. But the other beautifulthing that has happened is that
very first year, New Year 2001of those five students, his
name's Michael Begay. He'sbecome my assistant. And he now

(20:14):
teaches co teaches half thestudents with me. And so he's
become quite a, I mean, he'sbecome my own kind of
apprenticing under me learningcomposition for me, in private
lessons, and then getting someexperience teaching by doing
this project. And yeah, I mean,the the situations are different
with every school, some of theschools have no music program or

(20:39):
arts program at all. And, youknow, that's, unfortunately, not
really surprising. It's, youknow, a lot of schools across
the country don't prioritizemusic or art. Some of the other
schools do have a music program,they have amazing music
programs, some of the best musicteachers, I mean, I wish I had

(20:59):
these, these professors orteachers as my music professors,
but um, I believe that thereason they have good music
programs is because they have agood sports team, and they need
a marching band, you know,

Matthew Fluharty (21:15):
oh, to support, that makes sense.

Raven Chacon (21:17):
It doesn't make sense. And if that's the way to
get music instruments into kidshands, so be it. But like, an
example of one of the schools,there was a school, Monument
Valley High School, and you lookdown the hallway, and all you
see are headstocks of guitarssticking up, you know, every kid
has a guitar, or, you know, ahand me down guitar or, or, like

(21:41):
me, guitar with one string, boysand girls granted. It's just,
it's just part of the culturethere, you know, sometimes like
a skateboard and a guitar,right. And, and so that doesn't
mean that the students aren'tinterested in music, get those
schools, maybe they're even morehungry, because they don't have
that access. So in places likethat, I have to show up. And my

(22:05):
rule for this program is still,you have to write it in music
notation, which might seem in away hypocritical, since I do
these graphics scores and textscores, but I still feel that
that's the language, they needto meet the Quartet with
halfway, you know, the ensemblewho's coming all the way from
New York to play their work,they should be able to speak at

(22:26):
least that common denominator oflanguage. So, you know, simplest
kind of note, you can put aquarter note or a whole note,
just kind of, you know, onetone, middle C maybe, and if
nothing else, they write a piecefor that. But I show them all
the things they can do on it,you know, bend the notes, scrape
the notes, scrape the violin,bow it fast. And a lot of these

(22:49):
techniques translate from guitarAnyway, you know, fast picking,
triple picking, whatever, it'sthe same kind of application on
the on the other strings. So. Sothat's, that's been the work.
Yeah. And the next, the nextproject for that is hopefully
to, to build an archive of allthe recordings of these pieces.

(23:10):
I mean, by it. I've, I believeI've helped make 300 or more
compositions come into beingbetween Mike and I teaching
these kids. So yeah, probablyabout 200 students we've taught
since 2004.

Matthew Fluharty (23:26):
And are there outlets where folks can hear
some of these compositions rightnow,

Raven Chacon (23:31):
there is, you know, Performance Today on NPR,
did do a couple of episodes orprograms on on this project. So
I believe they still have someactive web links. If you go to
my website, I have a link to oneof those where you can, you can
hear and see video of theseperformances at the Grand

(23:51):
Canyon. But yeah, keep an eyekeep an eye out, maybe through
my site. That's, that's my nextproject is to try to try to
build a dedicated site for allof the work that these students
do, and try to archive all ofthe scores and audio files from
from these pieces.

Matthew Fluharty (24:12):
Then what we can do for folks who are
listening to this podcast,please check out the show notes
where we'll link to theperformance today piece the
raven has mentioned alongsidewhat he has on his website about
the program. You know, Raven,speaking of show notes, and
links to current and evolvingwork. I wonder if maybe that's a

(24:33):
bridge to your most recentrelease in anthology of chance
operations, which I think maybehas, at this point, been on for
maybe two or three months andhas really has been released,
very wide critical acclaim.
Would you be able to share alittle bit about how this LP
came together and some of thework that's featured on it?

Raven Chacon (24:56):
Yeah, the well Ongoing is, for me is any
opportunity to record. And whilea lot of that is solo, a great
deal of it is withcollaborators. And so over the
past 20 years, I probably dowork on maybe three or four,

(25:21):
maybe more recordings a year.
And a lot of times those mightend up as content for an
installation or a video pieceI'm working on, or something
else, but it all kind of justends up in a, you know, in a
folder on the on the desktop, orwhatever. And this kind of
compilation of recordings and,and different, some of them

(25:45):
coming from differentexperiments I've done, some of
them coming maybe from aninstrument I've built or tried
to build. A lot of it is filledrecordings, you know, any
combination of things I justtried to try to document making
sound. And so this, this mostrecent album I put out, was

(26:06):
actually the first album, mysolo album I'd put out in 10
years, I hadn't releasedanything, just under my name,
things that considered solo workin in 10 years, since 2010. And
what it what it was was was justthis random assortment of

(26:29):
different experiments I wasdoing. Some of them were
documentation of soundinstallations. So the one
singing toward the wind nowsinging toward the sun now that
that was actually a soundinstallation that was installed
at Canyon De Chelly, just outsidof Chinle. And was documenti

(26:50):
g this these kind of wind hars and solar powered instrumen
s that were put up out therAnother piece, I think it's

(27:35):
called to Yoni and that's thename for for this place in
northern New Mexico, which alsois called Bandelier National
Monument. And it sees runes,very ancient Runes of indigenous
people who are the ancestors toPueblo and other other tribes.
And my wife and I went to govisit this site, I'd been there

(28:00):
many times, but we went a fewyears ago and walking and being
very quiet, actually just kindof listening. But we went into a
few rooms, and we were talkingto each other and walking
around, and they were reallystruck by the resonance of this
of these, you know, stone, stonestructures. And so I captured

(28:24):
some of that, that resonancejust on my phone, actually, and
went back in a studio and justlistened to the profile of that
resonance, and tried toincorporate that into into a
recording or other experimentsor trying to actually transpose
that resonance on to otherinstruments.

(29:13):
There's a song there's a Yeah,call these songs actually. I'd
like to think about like that.
They're very short, you know,too, and, and a lot of them
function like songs on an album.
I don't, I'm not gonna call themcompositions or anything like
that, because I don't feel likecomposed all of them either. But
there's one called m v h. s. Andwhat that stands for is what I

(29:39):
was just speaking about a fewminutes ago, Monument Valley
High School, are all the kidshave these guitars. And there's
they did have a really goodmusic teacher A while back, who
was I don't know if this was hiscurriculum or curriculum of
maybe the school district butthey had a class where the young

(29:59):
kids had to play the five hole,quote unquote native american
flute kind of pentatonic scale.
I don't know where the flutescame from I imagine maybe they
were possibly bought off Amazonor the school supply house. They
probably weren't wooden eitherwill be they're probably
plastic, but it's it's filledrecording while I was there

(30:20):
teaching kids in the other roomhow to write string quartets, I
heard this amazing sound of 20Navajo kids trying to play what
this flute manufacturer believedhis native American music, and
it's never going to learn No,it's never going to be in tune.

(30:42):
And because this is a beginningmusic class, and the students
don't quite have the experienceof playing as an ensemble that
it was never going to line up.
So you hear all of this reallybeautiful misalignment, of
trying to replicate the sound ofwhat this flute believes it's

(31:05):
representing.

(31:39):
There's a collaboration calledmsrc, which stands for Marc
Sabat and Raven Chacon. Andthat's myself and composer Marc
abat playing on a custom builtrgan. That's what I'm playing.
nd he is playing a modifiediola, which is set to a

(32:05):
pecific tuning system that thatark had developed. So we are
ot playing the typical diatonicnd chromatic pitches that are
ound in western Westernonality or what they call an
qual temperament. But now we'relaying these kind of microtonal

(32:26):
itches and and improvising withhose two instruments. Which is,
hich is the only collaborationn the on the album.

(33:05):
There's also another one, it's astudy, it's called study for
handmade bird calls, andmicrophones sticking out the
window. So that's a recording Ilike to make. And I've done it
many times to create drones isjust drive around and stick a
microphone out the window. And Ispeed up and I slow down. And

(33:31):
like to believe that thataffects time and pitch, and
volume. And I have a lot ofthese recordings. But I also
like to then try to superimposeother kinds of things on to
them. So I've also beeninterested lately in in bird
calls, you know, the weather,whether they're wind, you know,

(33:53):
small wind kind of flute, orwhistles or more kind of
friction instruments. TheAudubon Society actually sells
these really beautiful littletwisted, twisted toys. I don't
know I don't know how todescribe it. It's a piece of
wood which has a little piece ofmetal inside of it. And you can
twist it like like a knob, andit chirps. And so I like to put

(34:19):
these together either on site orin the studio and kind of see
what how they interact, youknow, what, what cuts through
the other, you know, what kindsof harmonic content comes out on
top of each other. So that Yeah,some of these are just merely
experiments that ended up onthis on this recording.

Matthew Fluharty (35:03):
Raven, thank you for that. And thank you for
sharing the selections, we'vealso been listening to a phrase
you use that I wonder if youcould return to for just a
moment is this notion ofbeautiful misalignment. And I'm
interested in how that the sortof the action and the energy of
that, in contrast to this notionof equal temperament, which is a

(35:25):
term I'd never, never heardbefore, and I don't know the
definition, but I feel like I, Ican feel it can feel a
definition, there's somewhere,you know, and it, it for me,
like it opens up a space thatI feel like a lot of a lot of
your work has opened up in myown experience of which is this

(35:46):
questioning of what fieldrecording is like, what it is
historically, what it has beenthe way that it to them to use
something out of the musicallexicon to say that it is the
way it has been pitched towardscommunities and away from
communities, the way that it's,you know, I think about my, my

(36:06):
own orientation to the word issuper heavy, I mean, feel
recordings for me is like a,it's a real shock. And like,
Alan Lomax, his face appears outof the ink, you know, like,
there's that tradition withinthat word. And, and thinking
about this notion of beautifulmisalignment, and in the

(36:27):
creative practice that, thatyou've shared across these
pieces, I'm struck so deeply, bythe way, that your work is
challenging all of us to askquestions around the kinds of
categorization and extractionand almost like academic
distance that has been inside ofus notions of field recordings,

(36:51):
and like that form has beencritiqued before, you know, that
is a long, productive, longstanding critique of a lot of
the politics and ideologieswithin this work. My experience
of these pieces is that there'sa resistance to what a times can
be a really restrictive linear,almost like dual kind of subject
object relationship betweenlistening and the act of being

(37:14):
on land and in place,

Raven Chacon (37:19):
I can probably trace back my interest in this
field recording practice to, tojust the first the
experimentation of usingcassette tapes to make music and
trying to document things like,like, we were saying, you know,
the, the band playing in thedesert or in the basement or
whatever, you just try to makerecordings. And for me, fidelity

(37:45):
was always, you know, anobstacle like, like many people
who are trying to understandrecording, but it was something
I embraced early on and, andthought it might contribute even
to the to the sonority ofwhatever I was trying to capture
in some instances. And then Iwas I was doing other kinds of

(38:07):
projects, like the very firstpiece I claim as asset work as a
piece I made in 1999, calledfield recordings, where I was
wanting to record the quietestplaces I knew. So again, back, I
went back to Canyon De Chelly, Iwent to Window Rock, Arizona, I
went to some places, I wouldhike in New Mexico, Sandia
Mountains, and just try tocapture these places on on quiet

(38:31):
days. And I was reallyinterested to see what would
what I would capture. And ofcourse, because I went on such
quiet days and made it andrecorded it in such a quiet
environment, under quietconditions, I wasn't hearing
anything. So I kept turning themup all the way to their maximum
and, and then I could hear themagnification of what I was

(38:53):
hearing. And that becameinteresting, I could hear these
different kind of colors, if youwill, of what these places were.
And I realized maybe I wasgiving an opportunity for the
land to then say what it had tosay. And so fidelity has always
gone out the window. You know, Iit's not a concern of mine,
really, and maybe it never was.
And for me, there's still enoughinformation about the context of

(39:19):
the place. And maybe my hope isthat there's there's information
about the history of that placeas well. Or at least there's an
opportunity to consider that,you know, what that place is if
that if you're hearing thatplace amplified to its maximum,
maybe your maybe your your earhas brought you to to be

(39:42):
attentive to, to what else ishappening there, or that just
that the place exists in thefirst place. But But my reasons
for making full recordingssurely are in contrast to any
kind of an logical OR ethnomusicological purposes, at the
end of the day they are to makemusic and maybe or maybe to

(40:06):
analyze in a way for myself tomake other kinds of music. But
they're not necessarily there todocument pristine nature. The
more more recent project I didaround, I guess, so called field
recordings would be therecordings I made at Standing

(40:27):
Rock during the #DAPL Gathering.
And that was that was adifferent kind of what I like to
call deep listening, deeplistening of emergency where I
had the recorder on me the wholetime. And there was so much
happening, even sonically inretrospect, that it you try to

(40:53):
think well, what was the speedof this place? What was what was
the who were who were the peopleon the recording? Who was there?
Who is in the encampment who wasyelling over the hill on
loudspeakers and l rads at thewater protectors? Was there rest
was there. I mean, I tried notto capture any praying or even

(41:14):
singing, there was a lot ofbeautiful singing, but I wasn't
I wasn't interested in in thatI'm not a documentary filmmaker
or anything like that. It wasmore just to maybe to think
about land and and density andand time.

Matthew Fluharty (41:31):
I'm really struck in how you've written
about that, that period, thatyou were there in the LRADs were
there. And I feel like I evenkind of in perfectly understand
what those are. But for folkswho might be in the audience,
Raven, can you share with uswhat an L read is and how it how
it functioned in thatenvironment?

Raven Chacon (41:51):
Yeah, an LRAD is a long range acoustic device. And
it's basically a sonic weapon. Ibelieve it was developed, maybe
around 2008 2009, I might bewrong. But it was first
developed on cargo ships off thecoast of Africa to supposedly
warn pirates to, you know, toget get away, or they will

(42:15):
shoot. They've been justified ashaving usage for warning
communities of tornadoes orhurricanes. But from what we've
seen, they really just get usedas, as dispersal or even torture
kinds of sound devices, wherewe're, they're extremely loud,

(42:39):
extremely piercing, there'sactually a button on there, that
is a siren, that can be used.
And they're very directional, sothey can aim it at a, you know,
small crowd and get them to, todisperse, you know, from
wherever they're, they'repositioned. And I don't know
what else they've used them for.
There's there's probably manythings that have happened that

(43:02):
we're not aware of, yeah, withtheir usage. But they were used
at Standing Rock, you can seequite a, quite a few of the
photos from near the end ofthat, that standoff of them
using it on water protectors whoare positioned up on a hill. And
of course, they're probablysaying this was the way to reach

(43:23):
them over a long distance. Butas we do know, that can inflict
pain, and even, you know,hearing damage and other kind of
probably psychological andphysiological damage on on to
people.

Matthew Fluharty (43:36):
And then in one of your collaborations with
post commodity, the L rad makesan appearance. In the years
between worlds, we're alwaysspeaking in the spatial context
in which the rat appears is inAristotle's Lyceum.

Raven Chacon (43:53):
Yeah, part of the reason I went to Standing Rock
not only to go as an indigenousperson in the United States to
see what was happening and tosupport the water protectors was
that I did hear that these weremaking an appearance there in
North Dakota and being used onpeople. And so at the same time,

(44:14):
I was doing research aroundthese weapons use Sonic weapons
because we were planning to usethem in a in a sound
installation, and I thought itwould only be fair if that I
experienced one firsthand and Iguess fortunately I never, never
did. But we did end uppurchasing two of these LRADs

(44:35):
post commodity funny enough ormaybe not funny. They they were
available on eBay. Oh my god, Iforgot what we got what you so
they aren't. They aretechnically I guess, are legally
not considered a weapon becausethey have these other kinds of
communication capabilities. Butwe were able to obtain two of

(44:57):
them and ship them to Athens,Greece. Now the the art piece is
what we like to call a an allday. Music Composition. I think
it lasted 12 hours every day andconsisted of two of these all
rads on top of buildings thatsurround Aristotle's Lyceum.

(45:19):
These two buildings are theAthens Conservatory of Music and
the Hellenic Armed Forcesofficers Club, which kind of
where the police and themilitary personnel go and have
banquets. And what is situatedright in the middle is the place

(45:39):
where Aristotle and his studentswould gather and walk around
amongst the grounds around thegrounds and, and conduct the
lessons that they were they werehaving. So they wouldn't sit and
have their lessons they wouldactually, you know, walk on the
earth. And part of this thisphilosophy of peripatetic,
learning that as they're inmotion, as they're stepping on

(46:01):
the ground was a more productiveway to learn and to teach. And
so what's coming out of theseLRADs? Mind you they're not
they're not emitting loud soundsas intended by the LRADs but we
turn them all the way down totheir minimum is narratives that
we gathered, I guess, I guess,more kind of filled recordings,

(46:23):
if you will, Cristobal Martinezgathered some some stories from
folks who had arrived in theunited in the United States from
traversing the US Mexico borderlands, speaking about their
experience of walking throughthe desert, for a better life
here in the United States.
Meanwhile, I was in Athens,Greece, interviewing folks who
had crossed the Mediterraneanfrom Syria, Afghanistan, Africa,

(46:48):
and have arrived in Greece toawait their seeking of refuge in
the European Union. And we alsogathered some narratives from
the Cherokee Trail of Tears, andother instance of forced
migration. And the Navajo longwalk, where Kit Carson forced my

(47:10):
tribe to traverse the desert andbe relocated in this
concentration camp in the middleof New Mexico in the 1800s. And
so combining all of thesenarratives, we wanted to set
that against the grounds ofperipatetic learning, and
thinking about walking, moving,learning, and teaching. And so

(47:34):
that piece was up for 100 daysat documenta 14. And it was our
It was our way to subvert theusage of those of those l rats.

Matthew Fluharty (47:47):
How was this piece received by folks in the
city? And then what was theresponse like? Well,

Raven Chacon (47:55):
there was some early hesitation and pushback in
that there is a committee therein Greece and in Athens, who are
there to protect, you know,their sacred sites of Greece, of
course, we acknowledge that thesite of Aristotle must be

(48:17):
equivalent to the sites that wehold sacred in the southwest,
you know, our own indigenoussites. But at the same time, we
didn't install anything in theLyceum. We were sending beams of
sound into the Lyceum. And wewanted, we explained, we wanted
to have this this dialogue ofGreece's position in this mass

(48:38):
migration, and asked thiscommittee to, to allow us to
respond to that and to be a partof that collaboration of
response. And so eventually,they they let us do the work as
far as other other audiences,they're both local and visiting
documenta. It was, it wasreceived very well, I think it

(48:59):
was a bit hidden too many folkstoo, who weren't aware that it
was going to be there becauseit's purely a sound piece. I
mean, other than the LRADs,which are on the adjacent
buildings, one didn't, maybedidn't know that they were going
to be hearing, you know, thesenarratives. There was also a lot
of collaboration with musiciansin Greece while I was there, I

(49:20):
was there for four months. Andwhile I'm talking about these,
maybe these narratives from theAmericas they were we're How do
I say this? Maybe Maybe therewas a cross collaboration in our
composition, where, forinstance, the Cherokee Trail of
Tears narrative was translatedinto Greek and was spoken and

(49:45):
sung by a Greek musician. So wewere we were combining
narratives. We were overlappingnarratives. We were making this
kind of cross musical narrativehappen. We also I think we
composed like ranchera In usinglute and Greek instruments, and
also there was another piecethat that use different

(50:09):
languages Arabic, Sami, Samilanguage and one it was it was
it was not a it was not a directand literal telling of
individual stories all the time,he was speaking about it more as
a shared experience between alot of different people who are
in these situations of forcedmigration both in the past and

(50:31):
currently.

Matthew Fluharty (50:33):
As I think about what you've just shared
about that experience in Greece,and I think these questions are
on asking, what's, what one'sposition is, it leads me to
dispatch a piece, which is acollaboration between yourself
and Candice Hopkins piece, whichit sounds like is, is evolving,

(50:58):
has been articulated and isevolving. And I thought maybe as
a way in into sort of talkingabout this work and, and
thinking about American Ledger,if I could just share the
preface that you wrote inNovember of 2022 dispatch. You
write "Dispatch is either atranscription of events around

(51:19):
the 2016 dapple encroachment atStanding Rock, a prompt for an
ecological oral future, or atthe very least, a critique of
the privilege of meditative deeplistening. This score can be
realized as a performance or asa series of imagined events. It
can also be enacted in the realworld. The players the prompts

(51:42):
in the schematics are derivedfrom an analysis of the surface
dynamics and organization of thewater protectors in defense of
Standing Rock during the nodapple movement, not glossing
over the miscommunication,profiteering and injustices in
an increasingly fracturedsociety, new paths and new

(52:04):
formations are needed to refocusour attention in an attempt to
find truth. Participating in thescore may produce Sonic or
visual artifacts. These are asimportant as the actions."

Raven Chacon (52:20):
Yeah, so we well, that piece that started back to
this, what I was mentioningearlier, this this time that I
spent at Standing Rock. And I dowant to say I was invited to, to
be there by Cannupa Hanska Lugeranother native artist, is kind
of been involved in othercollaborations also that that

(52:43):
I've been involved in recently,mostly the sweet land opera, but
he's also doing a fantasticproject called Settlement. That
that is ongoing, also ongoingkind of web web site and
collaborative project. But whenI was up there, and as I was
saying, I was making kind offilled recordings and thinking

(53:05):
about just the diversity offolks that were they're
gathering to, to mostly supportthis project. I was I was blown
away by by the complexity ofhave that have that experience
and that, that gathering thatthat was there upon the land,

(53:25):
one of the other things thatdrove me to going in the first
place to I mean, I mentioned theEl rads and, and what I felt was
my responsibility to go was alsojust trying to untangle all of
the noise that I was hearing atthat time about what was taking
place. I mean, I, I felt at thetime that there was a lot of
misinformation or rumor or, orjust fabricated stories coming

(53:51):
out of there. And I couldn'ttell if that was coming from
water protectors, if that wasmaybe what's what's more
apparent these days, these kindof trolls like these imposters
on the internet saying, Oh, youknow, we're hearing story
reports of this and that andpeople getting their arms blown
off, the cops are coming inshooting at people. So I really

(54:13):
wanted to go for myself and seewhat was going on. I was
getting, I wasn't satisfied withsocial media being my only news
source for for this importantevent. And so, I think, stemming
from that, this, this idea that,that communication, that news,

(54:37):
that knowledge that a messagewas not quite getting from point
A to point B point A. We thinkof being of those being the
hosts, the stewards of thatland, we're Standing Rock is but
also maybe let point A being theland itself Having a message, a

(55:03):
cry, that needs to get to pointB, whether that's other native
people, whether that's everyonewho feels obligated to, to
protect the land, I felt itwasn't, it wasn't so direct. And
definitely when I arrived, I sawthat it was even more entangled.

(55:24):
It was more diluted, it was morenoisy. And it was, it was far
more complicated than I then Iunderstood. And so the filled
recordings after helped me kindof just listen and try to
analyze what was happening.
Again, listening to the dynamicsof the place. Listening to I
don't want to use Wordcharacters, but let's say

(55:48):
listening to the ensemble of whois there.
And it got me thinking, oftrying to put this in some kind
of score are not quite a score,not quite a prescription, or an

(56:08):
instructional score, maybe maybeserving as both a transcription
and an opportunity to create newprompts. So as I was sharing
this with Candace, we startedthinking, Well, you know, she
wasn't there. But I was tellingher Yeah, there was, there were
water protectors, there were avariety of folks coming from,
you know, native folks comingfrom other reservations coming

(56:30):
from urban places that were ofcourse, the host Lakota people
who were letting us be there.
And there were journalistsreporters, there were undercover
cops. I mean, there waseverybody there was like Burning
Man, people wanted to come justhang out. And, and I was
wondering how all of this wascontributing to, to what the

(56:51):
elders there at Standing Rock,and an importantly, what the
land wanted. And as directaction was happening, as people
were actually trying to go andmaybe prevent the bulldozers or
the tractors from digging outthe land there, but all of a
sudden bees, you know, somebodywould say, No, stop, you know,

(57:14):
the elders don't want to do thisright now. Or, you know,
somebody said this or that. AndI was realizing there was still
noise and miscommunications and,and other kinds of steering of
sound, and messaging that washappening there at the camp. So
I started to think, Okay, well,let's try to analyze this, let's

(57:36):
turn it into some kind of maybeeven like speculative fiction,
like saying, well, doesn't haveto be Standing Rock, these
things are ongoing all over theworld. Yeah, every month, even
we hear of a tree in Australia,that's gonna get cut down
because of highway or anotherpipeline in Canada or elsewhere,
you know, encroaching upon anindigenous community. And the

(57:57):
score dispatch is an opportunityto start thinking about who
would show up what they might doin these places, how they can
assist in creating some kind ofcarrying of knowledge of
knowledge and message. What arethe tactics in amplifying that

(58:19):
message, amplifying might be thewrong word. Because amplifying
is actually just one of thetactics, I mean, you can, you
can relay a message, you can saythe message for a long time, you
can come together as a chorusand double up that message, you
can change the register of thatmessage. By by that I mean

(58:41):
something like, a man might besaying something but then it's
when a woman says it, maybe itmeans something else. Or maybe
when a young person says what anelder saying maybe that reaches
a different audience, and viceversa, of course, trying to
think of you know, how sound,the parameters of sound, can be
utilized to, to carry a messageis really the point of the

(59:06):
score. And they they becomepropositions to consider but
also I would try to think ofmaybe there's a way to enact
these in real world scenarios toso we're not really necessarily
coming up with a manual for forher activism or protest at all,
but really just trying toanalyze all of the all of the

(59:30):
dynamics and players involved inthese situations. And that's
that's where it exists now as ascore. But the next step is a
collaboration with chalupassettlement project in having
artists maybe analyze their ownsituations that they're involved

(59:50):
in, or, or create creativeapplications or reenactments of
the prompts in the score.

Matthew Fluharty (01:00:00):
You know it, something that struck me about
this piece that I'm reallygrateful to have heard more just
through through what you'veshared, is this notion that
within all of that is also acritique of the privilege of
meditative deep listening. I'minterested to hear what what
that means right now, for youhow that that landed with me

(01:00:26):
speaking from, from my culturalbackground as a European
descended person, one can saythat they're entering an act of
listening or even, quote,unquote, deep listening, if
we're I mean, that that is itsown kind of a status sized sort
of reaction to a set ofconditions. But every celebrity

(01:00:47):
Corporation entity in the lastyear that has realized air has
said that they're going througha process of deep listening or
listening, it doesn't signal thestakes of the deeper
conversation you're suggesting,in dispatch, you know, the
culturally like we're living ina moment where the act of
listening itself ought perhapsto be critiqued in these ways.

Raven Chacon (01:01:12):
Yeah, yeah. It would it doesn't signal is the
next action, right, and, anddirect action in saying, well,
we should find out what exactlyis happening, we should try to
spread the message and bringattention to what is happening
at this, let's say this site ofconflict and not succumb to

(01:01:37):
hyperbole or, you know, even,you know, these kind of emotive
exaggerations, that Yeah, ofcourse, everybody is angry at
this encroachment. But at thesame time, there's an obligation
to try to explain and try toshare what is truly happening at
the site, you know, if theretruly is an injustice happening,
I think the best we can do is,is be truthful, about about that

(01:02:01):
message and about that, youknow, narrative that's
happening. Otherwise, it turnsinto some kind of thing that's
happened in more recent times ofthis, you know, so called fake
news or whatever. And this kindof, you know, everybody the
having these conspiracy theoriesabout around what's happening,
and that is surely not going towork in our favor for those of
us who are trying to protect theland and protect indigenous

(01:02:24):
rights. So this deep listeningback to this kind of that idea
of thinking that you arealigning with the concerns of
the land and the hosts. Andreally, you're just taking with
your ears, you know, you'reseeking your own resolve in this
place, and you go and visit it,and then you go and drive back
to LA or whatever you go, you goout to the desert, and meditate,

(01:02:48):
do whatever. And when really,there's more things that can be
done. And when you do findyourself in those direct action
situations, you will find thatit's not a meditative place,
you're really having to, tolisten out for drones and l
rads, and the policecollaborating with the private

(01:03:10):
pipeline security to come raiseyour camp. And so that was that
was a bit of what we weretalking about there is is what
is truly is the sound of theland that has been under attack.

Matthew Fluharty (01:03:26):
Raven, I'm grateful for your time. And it's
been really exciting. Just Justto have this conversation about
the arc, the wide arc of yourwork over these years. And just
in what you've just shared withdispatch, I'm wondering if that
is a bridge toward Americanledger number two, which is a
piece that is currently on viewat the Plains Art Museum as part

(01:03:47):
of the high visibilityexhibition. So I'm curious about
maybe first about how, how theAmerican ledger series came
about, you know, what, what thestory of its beginnings were,
and maybe maybe in particular,how American ledger number two

(01:04:09):
came together. And incollaboration with folks in
Tulsa,

Raven Chacon (01:04:13):
the American ledger series started as a well,
it really started years ago,when I was still a member of
post commodity. We're working ona large graphic score that was
going to be made of the elementsfound in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, from a furnacethat was no longer in use. And
that piece was to tell thehistory of that place, through

(01:04:38):
its materials and hopefullythrough some kind of form. And I
had wanted to make an subversionof the American flag with that
with those materials, and thatdidn't end up happening for that
piece. That's okay. I used itfor American Ledger No. 1 which
was commissioned for a differentexhibition. And that piece came

(01:04:58):
together because of my interestin maybe maybe my interest in
not having a score forperformance in the traditional
sense. So usually there's amaster score that can align
everybody involved in thecomposition. And then individual

(01:05:20):
musicians might have their ownpart, or it might follow the
score to play together. And theywanted everybody to look at just
one score. And that one score,then wouldn't be a big sheet of
paper, it might be somethingelse, it might take the form of
a wall, or a door, or abillboard, or a flag. And the

(01:05:42):
score itself would be thissubversion of the American flag.
So it has these kind of alreadyyou already, when you look at
the American flag, you alreadykind of look at it from left to
right, as if it's a writtenpage, maybe, or you know, how we
read music notation already hasthese kind of bars, which could
be staff, music staff, italready has dots on there, all

(01:06:06):
the stars are some kind ofpointillistic thing, that's how
I look at these objects, likethey could potentially be a
score so so I thought if it wasalready doing that, then maybe
there's a way to make it tellthe story of the United States.
And that's what that piecebecame American ledger. One

(01:06:26):
tells the story from left toright from top to bottom, the
events of of American history,from contact time to settlements
being built to slavery beingcarried out through the genocide
of indigenous people, and allthe way through, you know, the
civil rights, movement,assassinations of those in the

(01:06:46):
civil rights movement, and allthe way up until the unknown
future. And so, after thatpiece, there was a clip, there's
a collective in Oklahoma, we'reoriginally from New Mexico,
actually, called Atomic Culture.
And they commissioned numbertwo, and they were seeking a, a
site specific work for Tulsa,Oklahoma. And so I continued the

(01:07:11):
series, and made a score. That'sa some version of the oklahoma
state flag. And so things likecircles, and I don't know
there's a feather in that flag,those can become other kinds of
musical shapes or extra musicalshapes or indications they can

(01:07:33):
become arrows, they can becomerailroad tracks, they can
become, I don't know, amegaphone trumpet, it can become
a fermata, or crescendonotation, I start kind of
piecing these things backtogether the elements of the
flag, at the same time thinkingabout the place I'm writing

(01:07:56):
about. So what American ledgerto is, is that one is asked to
be presented as a billboard.
I think as any railroad debris,or as any burned, or paragraph
object. So in the case of howwas presented at the Plains Art

(01:08:20):
Museum, it was a plank of woodthat was burned, where the score
was burned into it. And thisscore is a little bit different.
I would say it's not exactly thesame kind of theater performance
piece that number one is, thisone speaks to forced migrations

(01:08:40):
into and out of Oklahoma. So Iwas talking about the forced
migration of tribes beingrelocated from elsewhere in the
United States into Oklahoma, andforced to live in that area.
Also, there is a host, there arehost tribes in Oklahoma, who
were also, you know, a bitdisplaced by this forced

(01:09:03):
migration of other tribes. Andas cities were being built,
there was also you know, blackcommunities starting to a forum
and because in these places, andin the case of Tulsa, a quite
successful community of blackfolks who are starting their own
businesses or own banks or ownnewspapers, which then led to an

(01:09:24):
incident called the, the Tulsamassacre. And therefore then,
this this community then havingto retreat, or dissolve its own
community because of that, andwhat the piece, then the way the
piece gets performed is usingtwo drums in the shape of a

(01:09:47):
circle. So there's a number ofplayers who are kind of walking
a ring around to drums and everyplayer Has is carrying either
three drum sticks, or threematch sticks. The idea is that

(01:10:10):
they can hit the drum. Ifthey're carrying a drum stick,
and once they hit that drum,they must give their drum stick
to the person behind them. Whenthey are not carrying a drum
stick, they can light amatchstick. And so people are

(01:10:33):
either hitting drums or they'relighting matches. And walking as
if they're kind of carrying thiscandle, if you will. And it's a
bit it becomes a bit of a hotpotato dynamic in that, you to
to, to get out of the ring ofperformance to let's say exit

(01:10:57):
from the performance, you mustabsolve yourself of these, these
drumsticks and matches. So youare constantly trying to
contribute to the to thecollaboration to the walking
ring. But you're also trying toget out of the situation. And so

(01:11:20):
people end up with too manydrumsticks or people end up in a
situation where they cannot hita drum. And it's this kind of
negotiation of trying to balanceequity, of allowing everybody to
be able to speak to contribute.
But also, nobody wants to be inthis in this situation, because

(01:11:42):
eventually you're going to getstuck with all of the drumsticks
or all of the matchsticksthere's also a burden as you as
you exit the piece, you play amelody on a marimba that's
situated in the center of thering. And as you exit, you must
continue this melody that'sbeing played by the people who

(01:12:03):
have exited previous to you. Sothat's another reason to exit
the piece early is because youwill have to have memorized all
of the melodies, previous to youexiting. So what I wanted to do
is try to replicate this, thisimbalance. And this this almost
crab in a bucket kind ofsituation that that the peace

(01:12:29):
puts its participants into. Butat the same time, everybody is
trying to assist each other aswell, working their way through
the competition. And that's whatthe piece is it took more
interest in the dynamics of theplayers, and what that might say

(01:12:49):
about the history of Tulsa, andand today how communities might
be struggling to collaborate.
But but at the same time,there's limited resources to end
in equities in these places.

Matthew Fluharty (01:13:08):
You know, and perhaps this takes us back to
one of the elements at the startof our conversation. Because I
remember when we were talkingabout this piece for high
visibility, I think it was maybewe were in the early stages of
the pandemic. It was slightlyunclear but I remember you

(01:13:29):
suggesting that it is a piecethat could take shape through a
High School Marching Band, Iremember you I remember you
sharing that has that happenedyet has a high school marching
band. I'm trying to find theright verb for what that would
be I mean to to be within thatspace to perform it.

Raven Chacon (01:13:45):
Yeah, I Not that I'm aware of. As of this moment,
there's only been oneperformance and that was the one
organized by atomic culture forthe very first presentation and
hopefully when COVID ease is upplains will be able to do a
version and I would love for forhigh school ensemble or marching
band to do the project. A lot ofmy scores allow for let's say

(01:14:09):
non musicians or people whodon't have Western music
experience to perform them. Soanybody could really you know,
perform this piece and I didn'twant to make it inaccessible by
having it be notated to strictlyin any kind of, you know,
Western music style or requireany in strument virtuosity.

Matthew Fluharty (01:14:30):
Raven, I'm so grateful for your time we're
about at the end of our windowtogether in our conversation,
and I really just have two morequestions as we sort of lead out
into our respective days. today.
What are you working on? You'reexcited about in 2021? Are there
other projects ahead that arereally stimulating you right
now?

Raven Chacon (01:14:51):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I I just completed a
series of graphic scores onepage graphic scores with Crow's
Shadow printmaking studio inEastern Oregon. And those are
maybe what can be described asportraitures, 30 dedications to
contemporary Indigenous women,sound artists and sound scholars

(01:15:15):
and musicians who are makinginteresting work today and who I
am a fan of each of these 13musicians. And so that recently
was, was premiered all 13 atCrow's Shadow, they're available
now. And I'm working on a bookthat further elaborates on on

(01:15:36):
the project and, and what thescores mean. And beyond that, I
recently got a camera, videocamera and doing more and more
video projects. That's, thatwas, as always been an interest
of mine and a medium I've workedin a bit with post commodity and
other projects. And it seemswith you know, with, with the

(01:15:58):
zoom kind of era that we're in,that seems to be the best way
for now to, to share music, youknow, to share with a live
performance or a musicpresentation. So I decided to
upgrade my skills and gear andwork with that. So I'm looking
forward to doing more pieceswith that. Maybe more kind of

(01:16:21):
filmmaking projects.

Matthew Fluharty (01:16:23):
We could really use all of your genius to
help us reconceptualize ourrelationship to zoom and
electronic media. And thismoment,

Raven Chacon (01:16:31):
I'm still learning zoom, I didn't I don't even know
half the things that I think onesupposed to know about it. Well,

Matthew Fluharty (01:16:41):
We're counting on you, Raven. You know, in
before, before we, before wehead out here this afternoon.
Just one final question on thewe the we ask all the folks who
stopped by for theseconversations, which is, you
know, what, what is moving youright now? You know, what books,
music, art, food, places,traditions, ideas, I feel

(01:17:06):
exciting and relevant and feellike they have a presence right
now. For you.

Raven Chacon (01:17:11):
Wow, I have.
That's a hard one. I feel like alot of people probably right now
very isolated. You know, Ihaven't I haven't really been
traveling or anything. And Ifeel like maybe that's a good
thing. I feel more connected towhere I live, where I try to
live Albuquerque New Mexico thanthen I have in a long time. And
I think it's because I've beenhome and I haven't been

(01:17:34):
traveling. And I've been ableto, you know, spend time in my
own house for a change and tryto visit with friends in the
area. But yeah, it's given me adifferent relationship of how I
intake something like music, youknow, I'm listening to a lot
more radio online radio,starting a radio project here at
CCA Wattis here in SanFrancisco. Just trying to

(01:17:55):
consume as much as I can,through through online sources,
which which isn't ideal, but youknow that that stuff is
available and I feel there aresome people taking advantage of
being able to share in that way.
Books, there was a there's afantastic book that came out by

(01:18:15):
sound scholar indigenous soundscholar Dylan Robinson called
Hungry Listening, that I'mstarting to read right now, in
which he talks about the settlerear and maybe maybe this idea
that we were talking aboutearlier in the, in the
discussion today about what wemight all take from listening or
what we what we try to gatherfrom listening and and

(01:18:37):
reciprocate, you know, in in howwe share sounds. That's
something I'm starting toconsider too as I do this work
these works like dispatch andAmerican ledger. And, and yeah,
I think you know, of course,looking forward to two things
getting back to so callednormal.

Matthew Fluharty (01:18:59):
Here here, you know, I have to ask Raven, is
there a particular internetradio station that you would
lead some of us to

Raven Chacon (01:19:06):
you know, there's a lot of them out there, but
I've been especially listeningto one called Radio Alhara
that's on line right now and isbroadcasting out of Palestine.
Beautiful.

Matthew Fluharty (01:19:17):
Thank you. So for folks that are listening,
all of these amazingsuggestions. All of the links to
the various works andperformances that Raven has
shared will be included in theshow notes and online at in high
visibility.org Raven, thank youso much for your time today. I'm
grateful. Thank you. Thanksagain to Raven zuccon for his

(01:19:43):
time and generosity in thisconversation. Please check out
the show notes in the highvisibility site and in high
visibility.org for furtherinformation on all the work and
ideas discussed. Please alsocheck out planes Art Museum and
planes are done. Or to learnmore about the high visibility
exhibition, which is on view in2013. And thanks so much for

(01:20:08):
spending some time with thisconversation. Take care