Pinochet's 'soundtrack to torture' made available to the public
Pinochet's 'soundtrack to torture' made available to the public
18 hours ago by Kath Paddison
A digital archive documenting music from the torture chambers, concentration camps and prisons of the former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is available to the public for the first time.
The online 'torture soundtrack', launching on 8 January 2015, is called Cantos Cautivos (Captive Songs) and includes songs written, sung and listened to in political detention – and the stories behind them.
It is the brainchild of Dr Katia Chornik - who herself is from Chile - a researcher at The University of Manchester's Music Department and the first scholar to investigate music under political detention in Chile.
When Pinochet seized power in 1973, the majority of the almost 40,000 political opponents imprisoned in over 1,000 detention centres suffered gruesome physical and psychological torture. Some of Pinochet's torture practices employed music and relate to CIA techniques.
Prisoners often used music as a means to cope with the harsh conditions and the uncertainty of not knowing if they would live or die. Survivors are being encouraged to upload their stories and songs to the Captive Songs website.
Some of the material on the archive are songs penned by the prisoners themselves, and in some cases recorded clandestinely in a concentration camp, like El puntúo (Cheeky Devil) and El suertúo (Lucky Devil) – all of the recordings are available to listen to.
More:
http://phys.org/news/2015-01-pinochet-soundtrack-torture.html
