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Athlone DJ takes snapshots of SA life to international festival
Chantel Erfort
What makes a man take images of 50 different people's lives and translate them into music? This is the question I put to Athlone resident André Manuel on the eve of his trip to Melbourne, Australia where he will be representing South Africa, along with artistic collective MattBlack and visual artist Ralph Borland, at the Next Wave Alternative Arts Festival.
André has been a DJ for close to 20 years and three years ago realised a life-long dream when he launched his independent record label, Dala Flat Music.
The work he will be presenting at the festival is an audiovisual installation called Speak with Music - an exhibition of music and photography that strings together the worlds of the 50 participants who form part of this leg of the project.
Speak with Music sprung into action last year when a group of people - of all colours, backgrounds, countries, cities, gender, sexual orientation - were invited to submit a snapshot of their lives. The idea was to get a group as diverse as possible.
The result was submissions from journalists, a world-renowned author, and a managing director in the UK, musicians and students, office workers and call centre operators, charity workers and businessmen, old and young, male and female.
The task then was for André to provide a soundtrack for each of the photographs. And at no point in the process did he know who the pictures were from. To him, each was just a reference number.
The final product is an exhibition, which showcases the participants' pictures, photographs of their ears, and their comments on their personalised compilations. Those who visit the exhibition will also be able to listen to each compilation.
When asked about his motivation for taking on this seemingly mammoth project, André says, "What really started this process for me, was... I looked at DJing as not just being a profession, but an artform. Not everyone has the ability to craft pieces of art. Maybe they can string pieces together, but I wanted to explore the deeper aspect of the art of DJing, the understanding and skill that goes into it. I needed to find a vehicle through which to express that."
And what does he hope to get out of this?
"I want to prove that good music will move you, no matter what your preferred genre," he says. "And I hope that through this, the participants will find some enjoyment in sharing in the gems and beauties in my record collection... the gems I've collected over many years.
"This is my way of giving back to those who participated. Those who submitted photos gave me a part of themselves through their photos, and in my mixes, I'm giving them a part of me. My songs are my thousands of little children, they're the colours in my palette, what I create my art with."
André has strong views on pop music and the direction the role of the DJ has taken in recent years.
"With the growth of popular music culture and the availability of music on the internet, audiences have a wider choice, so now, more than ever, the DJ has the responsibility to uncover the true gems.
"And because there is so much music available, when you walk down a street like Long Street, you expect to hear different music in each club, but unfortunately that's not the case.
"As a DJ, playing it safe is a negative. You have to push people, give them something new to think about. It's important to listen with your ears and not your eyes. Packaging and marketing play a huge role and if you only follow the marketing machine, you'll only be listening with your eyes," he says.
And while the process of giving the gift of music to the 50 participants may be very fulfilling, André says at times it is lonely and isolating. For weeks he has been locked in his room, surrounded by thousands of records and CDs. What has this done to his psyche?
"I'm an emotional DJ and music must bring about an emotional experience. It takes a lot out of me but I have to create music that allows people to let their inhibitions go... to dance, because that's when your true emotions are showing."
Looking at the various images that were submitted, it's clear that the music on the 50 CDs will be very different. How did André go about joining the dots between what he saw in the image and what he laced into his mix?
"After I looked at a picture, I laced music around various themes. I played with the stimulus. And at the end of the process, each of the CDs connected with me at a different level," he says.
"Going into this process, I kept one thing in mind: I wanted to stimulate a specific reaction. Keeping in mind the theme of the festival - Empire Games - I was inspired to bring people together like one organism - each of them are from different worlds and received CDs with different songs, but the one common element was me, the DJ, in a sense, the emperor," he laughs.
"And my aim was to get them to move in unison. Because that's what DJs do. They manage people's moods. Just think of a DJ going into a club, playing music and making all those people move, managing their moods.
"On the other hand, I also had a responsibility to give back something meaningful after the participants let me into their worlds."
What's been the best part of the project so far?
"Just rediscovering old gems, and reconnecting with music I haven't listened to in a long time, letting my imagination go has been a blessing," he says. "And seeing how people interpreted the theme of 'my world' when taking their pictures has given me so much insight into what people value.
Speak with Music will be exhibited at Melbourne's Next Wave Alternative Arts Festival, alongside the Commonwealth Games from Wednesday March 15 to Sunday April 2. Thereafter the project will be exhibited in Cape Town.
This article first appeared in the Athlone News, February 22 2006
What makes a man take images of 50 different people's lives and translate them into music? This is the question I put to Athlone resident André Manuel on the eve of his trip to Melbourne, Australia where he will be representing South Africa, along with artistic collective MattBlack and visual artist Ralph Borland, at the Next Wave Alternative Arts Festival.
André has been a DJ for close to 20 years and three years ago realised a life-long dream when he launched his independent record label, Dala Flat Music.
The work he will be presenting at the festival is an audiovisual installation called Speak with Music - an exhibition of music and photography that strings together the worlds of the 50 participants who form part of this leg of the project.
Speak with Music sprung into action last year when a group of people - of all colours, backgrounds, countries, cities, gender, sexual orientation - were invited to submit a snapshot of their lives. The idea was to get a group as diverse as possible.
The result was submissions from journalists, a world-renowned author, and a managing director in the UK, musicians and students, office workers and call centre operators, charity workers and businessmen, old and young, male and female.
The task then was for André to provide a soundtrack for each of the photographs. And at no point in the process did he know who the pictures were from. To him, each was just a reference number.
The final product is an exhibition, which showcases the participants' pictures, photographs of their ears, and their comments on their personalised compilations. Those who visit the exhibition will also be able to listen to each compilation.
When asked about his motivation for taking on this seemingly mammoth project, André says, "What really started this process for me, was... I looked at DJing as not just being a profession, but an artform. Not everyone has the ability to craft pieces of art. Maybe they can string pieces together, but I wanted to explore the deeper aspect of the art of DJing, the understanding and skill that goes into it. I needed to find a vehicle through which to express that."
And what does he hope to get out of this?
"I want to prove that good music will move you, no matter what your preferred genre," he says. "And I hope that through this, the participants will find some enjoyment in sharing in the gems and beauties in my record collection... the gems I've collected over many years.
"This is my way of giving back to those who participated. Those who submitted photos gave me a part of themselves through their photos, and in my mixes, I'm giving them a part of me. My songs are my thousands of little children, they're the colours in my palette, what I create my art with."
André has strong views on pop music and the direction the role of the DJ has taken in recent years.
"With the growth of popular music culture and the availability of music on the internet, audiences have a wider choice, so now, more than ever, the DJ has the responsibility to uncover the true gems.
"And because there is so much music available, when you walk down a street like Long Street, you expect to hear different music in each club, but unfortunately that's not the case.
"As a DJ, playing it safe is a negative. You have to push people, give them something new to think about. It's important to listen with your ears and not your eyes. Packaging and marketing play a huge role and if you only follow the marketing machine, you'll only be listening with your eyes," he says.
And while the process of giving the gift of music to the 50 participants may be very fulfilling, André says at times it is lonely and isolating. For weeks he has been locked in his room, surrounded by thousands of records and CDs. What has this done to his psyche?
"I'm an emotional DJ and music must bring about an emotional experience. It takes a lot out of me but I have to create music that allows people to let their inhibitions go... to dance, because that's when your true emotions are showing."
Looking at the various images that were submitted, it's clear that the music on the 50 CDs will be very different. How did André go about joining the dots between what he saw in the image and what he laced into his mix?
"After I looked at a picture, I laced music around various themes. I played with the stimulus. And at the end of the process, each of the CDs connected with me at a different level," he says.
"Going into this process, I kept one thing in mind: I wanted to stimulate a specific reaction. Keeping in mind the theme of the festival - Empire Games - I was inspired to bring people together like one organism - each of them are from different worlds and received CDs with different songs, but the one common element was me, the DJ, in a sense, the emperor," he laughs.
"And my aim was to get them to move in unison. Because that's what DJs do. They manage people's moods. Just think of a DJ going into a club, playing music and making all those people move, managing their moods.
"On the other hand, I also had a responsibility to give back something meaningful after the participants let me into their worlds."
What's been the best part of the project so far?
"Just rediscovering old gems, and reconnecting with music I haven't listened to in a long time, letting my imagination go has been a blessing," he says. "And seeing how people interpreted the theme of 'my world' when taking their pictures has given me so much insight into what people value.
Speak with Music will be exhibited at Melbourne's Next Wave Alternative Arts Festival, alongside the Commonwealth Games from Wednesday March 15 to Sunday April 2. Thereafter the project will be exhibited in Cape Town.
This article first appeared in the Athlone News, February 22 2006