MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH…
Mark Gergis. Part I
Produced by Matias Rossi
Over the past twenty years, Mark Gergis has immersed himself in popular and folk music scenes and subgenres from Syria, Iraq, Sumatra, Cambodia, Thailand and other places, in order to rescue what he calls ‘sound anomalies’ from oblivion: records, songs, artists and productions that stand out for their singularity in relation to the mass. This North American of Iraqi origins does not approach collecting as an indiscriminate accumulation or an attempt to reconstruct the musical history of a particular country or region down to the last detail with an academic’s rigour.
His interest lies in the originality and extravagance of musical products gestated on the margins of the mainstream, or in everything that seems to posses these qualities from an outsider’s perspective. Because in his untiring process of research and discovery, Gergis is fully aware that his work lies in a grey area in which the model archivist’s neutrality and objectivity are replaced by aesthetic criteria/prejudices.
An unusual process of filtering and assimilation that celebrates the clash of civilisations, even beyond idiomatic, chronological, cultural and sociogeographic barriers.
Radio Maghreb
In this project Alan Bishop vindicates the use of radio as an electronic instrument in a journey through time and space that unearths old recordings from the AM and FM airwaves made during his first trip to Spain and Morocco in 1983.
Sublime Frequencies
Mark Gergis, a regular collaborator with Sublime Frequencies, explains the project's philosophy and the cultural, logistical and esoteric implications of collecting music from a culture other than one's own.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of the interview with sound collector Mark Gergis that we were unable to include the first time around.
Mark Gergis. Part II
Conversation with Mark Gergis on his sound collection
This is a conversation by email with record and sound collector Mark Gergis, which took place on April 2011, to prepare a monograph on his sound collection.