Mobile voices, flamenco and ethics of representation in Andalucía, un siglo de fascinación/Andalusia, A Century of Fascination (1996)

Abstract

This article studies the mobility of human voices in Basilio Martín Patino’s series of television films about Andalusia. It explores the voice as an object of cinematic representation and as a focal point of affective investments in a transnational context of postcolonial and neo-colonial power struggles. Furthermore, it scrutinizes a selection of voices that speak and sing throughout the series and considers the location of these voices across the soundtrack of Patino’s films. Through its mobile vocal aesthetic, Patino’s film series gestures towards an ethics of representation in which flamenco becomes a wandering signifier that can only be envisioned in the plural, through a myriad set of accented voices and memories.