Voice Notes: Creativity, Technology and Exile in Nottingham and Slemani UNESCO Cities of Literature

“声音笔记”是一项创造性的写作和声音艺术倡议，与伊拉克库尔德斯坦诺丁汉和斯勒马尼的流离失所社区合作。“语音笔记”以我的“跨越界限：文学与电话”项目为基础，通过对移动技术、文学传播和被迫移民的原创性研究吸引国际观众，并利用创新的电话方法与广泛的文化组织促进知识交流的新途径。通过联合国教科文组织创意城市网络支持的跨国文化交流活动，促进新兴声音的产生，该项目将共同创作互动表演和展览、移动应用程序、在线声音档案、共同编辑的诗歌小册子和工具包。通过这些活动和产出，它将使难民社区、非政府组织、文化合作伙伴、教育工作者、艺术家、活动家和公众参与到日常技术的创造性方法中，形成关于道德网络、跨国交流以及跨国界对话和倾听的可能性的新思维方式。该项目将与难民艺术组织Compass Collective合作举办一系列写作和口语工作坊，为跨国参与和赋权弱势群体提供新的机会。为支持诺丁汉和斯勒马尼的流离失所社区，这些研讨会将探讨声音的传播以及电话技术在导航和交流流亡经历方面的可能性和局限性。扩展“跨越边界的呼唤”（“跨越界限”项目的一部分）期间开发的原始方法，将邀请年轻的难民、寻求庇护者和国内流离失所者在电话上编写、表演和录制他们的贡献，从而共同创建一个多语言的“语音笔记”集合，这些“语音笔记”是由经历过被迫流离失所的人留下的，也是为他们留下的。这些声音笔记将构成互动表演和展览的基础，由著名的库尔德-瑞典作曲家Hardi Kurda制作，将在诺丁汉和斯勒马尼举行。活动将使用一个方向性的条形音箱来回应观众的动作，使参观者能够通过在展览中移动和接听交叉的电话来体验和塑造项目。市民亦有机会留下自己对计划的意见；选择适度的响应将反过来馈送到动态和不断发展的电话音景。此外，这些语音笔记将通过互动移动应用程序和我们项目网站上的声音档案在网上分享，精选的语音笔记将成为与一名难民作家合作编写的合编诗歌小册子的基础，并与指南针集体合作制作工具包，通过对位艺术和教科文组织创意城市网络传播。该项目由多个国际文化组织、非政府组织和艺术家共同设计，包括Compass Collective、Counterpoints Arts、Hardi Kurda、New Art Exchange、Refugee Roots、Nottingham和Slemani联合国教科文组织文学城市和STEP。通过参与性艺术和协作性交流，发展Compass Collective在“跨越国界的呼唤”期间建立的方法，并向更广泛的国际受众传播日常电信技术创新方法的潜力，以促进创造性的自我表达、文学艺术、公民对话和跨文化交流，该项目将显著推进对移民、文学和电话技术的新发展。

'Voice Notes' is a creative writing and sound arts initiative working with displaced communities in Nottingham and Slemani in Iraqi-Kurdistan. Building on my AHRC-funded 'Crossed Lines: Literature and Telephony' project, 'Voice Notes' engages international audiences with original research on the mobile technologies, literary communication and forced migration, and facilitates new pathways for knowledge exchange using innovative approaches to the telephone with a broad range of cultural organisations. Enabling emerging voices through transnational cultural exchange activities supported by the UNESCO Creative Cities network, the project will result in the co-creation of an interactive performance and exhibition, a mobile app, an online sound archive, a co-edited pamphlet of poetry, and a toolkit. Through these activities and outputs, it will engage refugee communities, NGOs, cultural partners, educators, artists, activists and members of the public with creative approaches to everyday technologies, shaping new ways of thinking about ethical networks, transnational communication, and the possibilities of talking and listening across borders. Offering new opportunities for transnational engagement and empowering under-represented voices, the project will involve a series of writing and spoken word workshops delivered in collaboration with refugee arts organisation Compass Collective. Supporting displaced communities in Nottingham and Slemani, these workshops will explore the transmission of the voice and the possibilities and limitations of telephone technologies in navigating and communicating experiences of exile. Extending the original methodologies developed during 'Calling Across Borders' (part of the 'Crossed Lines' project), young refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons will be invited to compose, perform and record their contributions on the phone, resulting in the co-creation of a multilingual collection of 'voice notes' left by and for people who have experienced forced displacement. These voice notes will form the basis of interactive performances and exhibitions produced by acclaimed Kurdish-Swedish composer Hardi Kurda to be held in Nottingham and Slemani. The events will make use of a directional sound bar that responds to the movements of audience members, enabling visitors to experience and contribute to the shaping of the project by moving through the exhibition and tapping into intersecting telephone calls. Members of the public will also have the opportunity to leave their own voice notes in response to the project; a selection of moderated responses will in turn feed into the dynamic and evolving telephone soundscape. Furthermore, the voice notes will be shared online through an interactive mobile app and sound archive on our project website, and selected voice notes will form the basis of a co-edited pamphlet of poetry developed in partnership with a refugee writer, with an accompanying toolkit produced in collaboration with Compass Collective and disseminated through Counterpoints Arts and the UNESCO Creative Cities network. This project has been co-designed with a number of international cultural organisations, NGOs and artists including Compass Collective, Counterpoints Arts, Hardi Kurda, New Art Exchange, Refugee Roots, Nottingham and Slemani UNESCO Cities of Literature and STEP. Developing the methodologies established with Compass Collective during 'Calling Across Borders' through participatory arts and collaborative exchange, and disseminating to a wider international audience the potential for innovative approaches to everyday telecommunication technologies to facilitate creative self-expression, the literary arts, civic dialogue, and cross-cultural communication, the project will significantly advance ways of thinking about the relationship between migration, literature and new developments in telephone technologies.