Les mots dits: Diasporic identity and representation in text based audio art

Les Mots Dits is both an experimental audio documentary and an essay. The essay portion explores ideas surrounding identity and representation within diasporic cultures, examined through the lens of text-based audio art and popular music. Ideas explored include a look at the hermeneutics of musicltext, "significance" within speech, and text and representation within diasporic and hybrid culture. The companion audio work is comprised of narrative text and allegorical soundscapes. The text is derived from interviews with the author and his grandparents, the soundscapes from recordings made by the author in Europe during the summer of 2004. An appendix included in the essay provides a detailed timeline of the piece with commentary by the authorlcomposer. Both the essay and the composition are submitted in partial completion of the MFA programme at the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU.