The Actors’ Boycott During Polish Martial Law: A Case Study in the Politics of Listening as Collective Action

• Authors: Andrea F. Bohlman

Title variants

PL

Bojkot aktorski w stanie wojennym: studium przypadku polityki słuchania jako działania kolektywnego

Abstracts

PL

W niniejszym eseju rozważam muzyczną stawkę bojkotów, opierając się na dokładnej analizie bojkotu artystów podczas stanu wojennego w Polsce w latach 80. Dostosowując się do zwiększonego znaczenia kontroli - a nawet paranoi - i ograniczeń, które są generowane przez bojkoty i narzucane bojkotowanym, rozumiem tę formę akcji protestacyjnej jako rekonfigurację codziennego życia społecznego, a co za tym idzie, technik słuchania i kultury słuchowej. Najpierw definiuję i teoretyzuję bojkot jako formę zbiorowego działania, w którym przenikają się idee dotyczące politycznych możliwości dźwięku/muzyki w odniesieniu do ciszy. Następnie pokazuję genealogię bojkotów muzycznych, w które uwikłane zostaje również piśmiennictwo poświęcone muzyce, takie jak krytyka muzyczna oraz muzykologia. To teoretyczne tło toruje mi drogę do analizy bojkotu mediów państwowych przez polskich aktorów. Śledzę sposoby słuchania i wykonawstwa na żywo oraz nagrane wypowiedzi artystów dotyczące bojkotu, aby zademonstrować, jak różne tryby współpracy ukazują muzykę i dźwięk jako środki aktywacji politycznej intensywności. Archiwa kaset magnetofonowych, rozpowszechnianych za pośrednictwem nieoficjalnych sieci wydawniczych opozycji, dają nam wgląd w dźwięk i muzykę domowych przedstawień, koncertów w kościołach oraz innych dźwiękowych mediacji odmowy.

EN

This essay considers the musical stakes of boycotts, basing my work on the close analysis of the actors’ boycott during Polish martial law in the 1980s. Attuned to the heightened importance of scrutiny - even paranoia - and restraint that is generated by boycotts and imposed upon the boycotted, I understand this form of protest action as a reconfiguration of every day social life and, by extension, listening techniques and aural culture. First, I define and theorize the boycott as a form of collective action in which ideas about the political possibilities of sound/music in relation to silence percolate. Second, I show a genealogy of musical boycotts in which writing on music, such as music criticism and musicology, is also implicated. This theoretical backdrop paves the way for my turn to the Polish actors’ boycott of state media. I trace modes of listening and performing across live and recorded articulations of the boycott by artists to show how different modes of collaboration reveal music and sound as the means of activating political intensities. Archives of cassette tapes circulated through the opposition’s unofficial publishing networks provide glimpses into the sound and music of home theater, church concerts, and other sonic mediations of recusal.

Keywords

EN

music and protest; unofficial media; censorship; home concerts; cultural boycott

PL

muzyka i protest; media nieoficjalne; cenzura; koncerty w domach; bojkot kulturalny

• Publisher: Związek Kompozytorów Polskich
• Journal: Polski Rocznik Muzykologiczny
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 22
• Pages: 187-218

Dates

published

2024

Contributors

author

Andrea F. Bohlman

• Department of Music — University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/prm-2024-0006

Biblioteka Nauki

60749251