Marikana Viewpoints

Warrick Sony, Marikana Viewpoints: Against Civilians (films stills), 2013/14
Found video with sound design
5 min 26 sec
Courtesy the artist

Warrick Sony
Marikana Viewpoints
Warrick Sony, Marikana Viewpoints: Most of You Will be Listening (film stills), 2013/14
Found video with sound design
4 min 17 sec
Courtesy the artist

These videos were made from secretly obtained
video footage of the incident know as the Marikana
Massacre—‘the single most lethal use of force
by South African security forces against civilians
since 1960.’
This event—on 16 August 2012—was a turning
point in the history of post-apartheid South Africa,
and a reflection of the reckless attitude the Zuma
administration has towards the people of the country.
The culture of violence that began at Marikana has
seen a crisis in leadership and a worrying decay in
democratic principles. (As this text is being written,
thousands are marching for a peaceful resolution
to xenophobic attacks on foreigners in the Durban
area of KwaZulu-Natal.) Against Civilians presents
an aerial viewpoint during the massacre. Most of
You Will be Listening is an uncut walk though the
twilight of the aftermath, over which we hear the
voice of South Africa’s first female national police
commissioner, Riah Phiyega, recorded during a
lecture to the police after the massacre, in which
she quietly congratulates them for their part in
the events.

Warrick Sony is a composer, sound designer and audio artist
working out of Milestone Studios in Cape Town. He has produced
a body of work dating back to the eighties, centred largely around
an interest in propaganda and the technologies that repressive
regimes adopt to control their populations. He is the founder
and sole permanent member of the Kalahari Surfers, a fictional
music collective especially active during the mid to late eighties,
which has produced politically acute music albums, art projects
and live shows. He was one of the first South African musicians
to tour in the Eastern Bloc, with concerts in the former Soviet
Union and East Germany. During the nineties, his collaborative
work included music and a tour of Brazil with Sowetan poet
Lesego Rampolokeng, and music/sound design for the Handspring
Puppet Company/William Kentridge productions of Ubu and the
Truth Commission and Faustus in Africa, and Kentridge’s film
Johannesburg 2nd Greatest City after Paris. Recent work includes
two video installations for Ngezinyawo—Migrant Journeys at the
Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, and the music for Turbulence,
the South African exhibition in the Red Bull Hangar 7 event
in Salzburg.

Sony has performed at three of the Unyazi Electronic Music
Festivals. His album Unoriginal Inhabitants was released in May
2015. His film scores include Jozi (directed by Craig Freimond)
and In My Country (directed by John Boorman), co-composed with
Murray Anderson. Sony runs a digital download music site called
sjambokmusic.com, which specialises in eclectic South African
music. His greatest regret is being passed over as Minister of
Disinformation for the first post-apartheid government.