And who sees the mystery

Following the repatriation in 2010 of the Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collection from Washington to Tangier, Gilles Aubry and Zouheir Atbane undertook collaborative research on the reception of these recordings in today’s Morocco. The film follows their residency in Tafraout, a village where Paul Bowles recorded an Ahwash music performance in 1959. In exchange with local musicians, the artists deliver an interpretation of the return of these music recordings to their original location, including the documentation of listening sessions, discussions, and music sessions. The work examines the micro-politics of invisibility: Paul Bowles as an ‘invisible spectator’; the veil as a strategy of resistance during the French occupation of Morocco; the Pythagorean curtain of French acousmatic music.
World premiere at ESAV Marrakesh, as part of the exhibition Why ain't you rich if you're so smart, 2014.