Isse, Warsame (2025) Burur & Interactive Wearable Sound Art: Feeling the Unspoken Excess of Somali Diasporic Affect. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
Video (video/mp4)
12MBBurur-Device-Passive-Ring-Modulator-Multi-Effects-Pedal-Delay-Pedal.mp4 - Accepted Version Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access. | |
Video (video/mp4)
4MBBurur-Device-Self-Oscilation-and-Reverb-Test.mp4 - Accepted Version Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access. | |
Audio (audio/x-wav)
5MBEcho-X-Oscillation-Build-Up.wav - Accepted Version Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access. | |
Audio (audio/x-wav)
4MBStatic-Fuzz -from-Damaged-Echo-X-Delay-Pedal.wav - Accepted Version Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access. | |
Audio (audio/x-wav)
6MBGuitar-Vox-Preset-Multi-Effects-Pedal (Humming Into a Contact Mic).wav - Accepted Version Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access. | |
Audio (audio/x-wav)
3MBVocal-Beat-with-Multi-Effects-Pedal.wav - Accepted Version Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access. | |
Preview |
Text (application/pdf)
1MBISSE_MA_S2025.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access. |
Abstract
Those in the Somali and larger Black Diaspora in Canada have learned to navigate this liminal space where we negotiate our cultural identity and expression to fit into white hegemonic society. This practice is known as code switching. This ability to adapt and fit into various settings and situations while still holding on to your culture is often seen as a superpower in the Black Diaspora, but it is also a heavy burden. Code switching is the need to conform and express oneself in a palatable way in colonialist societies. In my research I explore how concepts like the Technovocalic Body, Black technopoetics, sonic substance, and Toloobid might create an alternative way of self expression that allow for those in the Black Diasporic to speak and literally feel their ineffable thoughts and emotions while reaffirming their cultural identity. This project utilizes research-creation to create a wearable interactive sound art piece, the Burur Device, that allows a person to haptically engage with affectively charged sonic media and respond to it by distorting it and imbuing it with their own feelings. The Burur Device was created by attending Somali cultural events and engaging with the sound recordings of these to recreate a sonic space to inhabit, feel and distort. The immersions and immediacy of interactive haptic sound capabilities of the Burur Device offer a way for those in the Black Diaspora to express, materialize and embody the ineffable pressures of code switching that alludes language (for now).
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Communication Studies |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | Isse, Warsame |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | Media Studies |
| Date: | March 2025 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Miller, Elizabeth |
| Keywords: | Somali Diaspora, Black Diaspora, Burur, Research-Creation, Sound, Black Technopoetics, Interactive Art, Technovocalic Body, Wearable Art, Haptic Art, Affect |
| ID Code: | 995356 |
| Deposited By: | Warsame Isse |
| Deposited On: | 17 Jun 2025 16:50 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Jun 2025 16:50 |
References:
BibliographyAbdullahi, Mohamed Diriye. Culture and Customs of Somalia. Culture and Customs of Africa 2.Wesport (Conn.): Greenwood, 2001.
Alhassan, Amin. “The Canonic Economy of Communication and Culture: The Centrality of the Postcolonial Margins.” Canadian Journal of Communication 32, no. 1 (March 7, 2007): 103–18. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2007v32n1a1803.
An Yountae, and Eleanor Craig, eds. Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and Philosophy of Religion. Black Outdoors. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021.
Baron, Jaimie, Jennifer Fleeger, and Shannon Wong Lerner, eds. Media Ventriloquism: How Audiovisual Technologies Transform the Voice-Body Relationship. 1st ed. Oxford University PressNew York, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563625.001.0001.
Bessire, Lucas, and Daniel Fisher, eds. Radio Fields: Anthropology and Wireless Sound in the 21st Century. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
Carver, Natasha. Marriage, Gender, and Refugee Migration: Spousal Relationships among Somali Muslims in the United Kingdom. The Politics of Marriage and Gender. New Brunswick (N.J.): Rutgers University press, 2021.
Chapman, Owen, and Kim Sawchuk. “Creation-as-Research: Critical Making in Complex Environments.” RACAR : Revue d’art canadienne 40, no. 1 (2015): 49. https://doi.org/10.7202/1032753ar.
Chapman, Owen, and Kim Sawchuk. “Research-Creation: Intervention, Analysis and ‘Family Resemblances.’” Canadian Journal of Communication 37, no. 1 (April 15, 2012): 5–26. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2012v37n1a2489.
Chapman, Owen. 2005. “Rhythm Science/Rhythm Science Audio Companion: Excerpts and Allegories from the Sub Rosa Archives.” Canadian Journal of Communication 30 (4): 703–4. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=20001840&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Chambers, Iain. Migrancy, Culture, Identity. Comedia. London ; New York: Routledge, 1994.
“Chambly Road National Historic Event,” n.d. https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1593#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20earliest%20roads%20in%20Canada%2C%20the,the%20forts%20along%20the%20Richelieu%20River%20with%20Montreal.
Chude-Sokei, Louis Onuorah. The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics.Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2016.
Edugyan, Esi. The Second Life of Samuel Tyne. New York: Knopf Canada, 2011.
Eno, Mohamed A., Omar A. Eno, and Abderrazak Dammak. "From Linguistic Imperialism to Language Domination: "Linguicism" and Ethno-Linguistic Politics in Somalia." Journal of Somali Studies 3, no. 1 (Jun, 2016): 9-52. https://lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Flinguistic-imperialism-language-domination%2Fdocview%2F1875725778%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D10246.
Except This Time Nothing Returns from The Ashes. Experimental Short film, 2023.
Findlay-Walsh, Iain. “Virtual Auditory Reality: Inhabiting Digital Pop Music as Simulated Space.” SoundEffects - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience 10, no. 1 (January 15, 2021): 71–90. https://doi.org/10.7146/se.v10i1.124199.
For the Black Kids in My 8th Grade Spanish Class. Video. Button Poetry. Button Poetry, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gx5oKuxQLQ.
Here Is a Classic Vid Featuring Oscar Peterson and His Thoughts on Electronic Instruments, n.d. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1002562088050764.
Ibrahim, Awad. “THE NEW FLÂNEUR: Subaltern Cultural Studies, African Youth in Canada and the Semiology of in-Betweenness.” Cultural Studies 22, no. 2 (March 2008): 234–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380701789141.
Koops, Bert-Jaap. “The Concept of Function Creep.” Law, Innovation and Technology 13, no. 1 (January 2, 2021): 29–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/17579961.2021.1898299.
Kwinter, Sanford. Architectures of Time: Toward a Theory of the Event in Modernist Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Loughran, Katheryne S. and Foundation for Cross Cultural Understanding, eds. Somalia in Word and Image. Washington, DC, 1986.
Marshall, P. David. New Media Cultures. Cultural Studies in Practice. London : New York: Arnold ; Distributed in the US by Oxford University Press, 2004.
Massumi, Brian. The Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity, 2015.
Mensah, Joseph, and Christopher J. Williams. 2014. “Seeing/Being Double: How African Immigrants in Canada Balance Their Ethno-Racial and National Identities.” African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 8 (1): 39–54. doi:10.1080/17528631.2014.986024.
Miller, Paul D., and Peter Lunenfeld. Rhythm Science. Mediawork Pamphlet. Cambridge: MIT, 2004.
Moten, Fred. In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Moten, Fred. The Universal Machine. Consent Not to Be a Single Being, v. 3. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.
Mukhtar, Mohamed Haji, and Margaret Castagno. Historical Dictionary of Somalia. New ed. African Historical Dictionary Series, no. 87. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Naguib, Saphinaz-Amal. “Museums, Diasporas and the Sustainability of Intangible Cultural Heritage.” Sustainability 5, no. 5 (May 13, 2013): 2178–90. https://doi.org/10.3390/su5052178.
Papenburg, Jens Gerrit, and Holger Schulze, eds. Sound as Popular Culture: A Research Companion. The MIT Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9975.001.0001.
Pink, Sarah. Doing Sensory Ethnography. Repr. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2013.
Robinson, Dylan. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. Indigenous Americas. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020.
Rollefson, J. Griffith. “The ‘Robot Voodoo Power’ Thesis: Afrofuturism and Anti-Anti-Essentialism from Sun Ra to Kool Keith.” Black Music Research Journal 28, no. 1 (2008): 83–109.
Rippeon, Andrew. “Audiovisual Materiality and the Technopoetical Gesture in Recent Black Poetry and Performance.” MELUS 47, no. 2 (September 23, 2022): 77–103. https://doi.org/10.1093/melus/mlac038.
“Somali Night Fever: the little-known story of Somalia’s disco era.” The Guardian, March 5, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjnRW6LQ0GM&t=473s.
Steinskog, Erik. Afrofuturism and Black Sound Studies: Culture, Technology, and Things to Come. 1st ed. 2018. Palgrave Studies in Sound. Cham: Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Synthrotek Passive Ring Modulator Kit: Build & Demo. Accessed April 21, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP05aZxwuFs.
Théberge, Paul. Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology. Music/Culture. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press : University Press of New England, 1997.
The Season of Burning Things. Short Film, 2021.
Turner, Victor Witter. “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology.” Rice Institute Pamphlet - Rice University Studies 60 (1974): n. pag.
Walcott, Rinaldo. Black like Who? Writing Black Canada. 2nd rev. ed. Toronto, Ont: Insomniac Press, 2003.
Who Is Rainger FX? JHS Pedals, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hraKPajk404&feature=youtu.be.
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.
Repository Staff Only: item control page
Download Statistics
Download Statistics