Kite Lutherie: Sonic Encounters around Wind-Human Collaborative Crafting

Abstract

This text encapsulates the journey I embraced for my research—creation project on collaborative experimental lutherie. While pursuing my Master’s degree in Sonic Arts, I found myself deeply interested in the character and presence of the wind I was constantly stumbling upon in Belfast, Northern Ireland. By adopting the cosmoplitics approach proposed by Isabelle Stengers, read through the framework of the contemporary arts, I will evaluate the feasibility of presenting the sound making process as a collaborative platform where human and non-human actors are allowed to interact. While wondering how to establish sonic exchange mechanisms with the wind, I rediscovered the local kiting folk practices and began to study the kite using conceptual tools brought form the German media theory, particularly the work pioneered by Friedrich Kittler. It is a physical fact that the kite could not fly if either Wind or Human were missing; therefore, in that sense, I will argue that kite flying can be presented as Kulturtechnik whenever both actors find themselves affected by the result of the collaborative action. Going a step further, I will explore Kite crafting in terms of experimental Lutherie as a process in which the final “instrument” is indeed the result of wind-human sound interaction.