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Juan Castrillón

Scholar, performer, and media maker.

My intellectual agenda explores analytics of listening and world-making praxes among dervishes in Anatolia, and Tukanoan shamans in Colombia. My research methods include collaborative projects for producing photographs, texts, films, artifacts and installations. The experimental ethnography I developed is a performative response to contemporary debates in the humanities about object-oriented ontologies, sensory embodiments, and indigenous analytics on media.

Currently, I am a doctoral candidate in Ethnomusicology at the University of Pennsylvania and board member of the Society of Anthropology of Lowland South America. I am also pursuing Arabic calligraphy and ney reed-flute training under Turkish instructors.

6 months ago

Interests

Breath, listening, talismans, ethnographic artifacts, filmmaking and museum exhibits.

Highlights

My creative and artistic practice fosters world-shifting, and the production of micro-atmospheric instantiations of light and affect. My scholarly work analyzes audile and sonic worlds in Anatolia and the northwest Amazon in Colombia.

Publications and Exhibitions

Academic Publications

  • Juan Castrillon, “Yuruparí’s Disappearance: Women’s Laughter and Organology Without Musical Instruments in Vaupés.” (Forthcoming 2020)
  • Juan Castrillon and Jonathan D. Hill, “Narrativity in Sound: A Sound-Centered Approach to Indigenous Amazonian Ways of Managing Relations of Alterity.” El Oído Pensante 5/2 (2017).
  • Juan Castrillon, “Spatial Transformation of Music Practice in Istanbul: Repositioning of Subjectivities.”Porte Academik 10/2 (2014): 131-143.
  • Juan Castrillon, “Training Kamish: Acoustic Ethnographies of Islam and Challenges of Sound in the Construction of Subjectivities.” Colombian Review of Anthropology 48/2 (2012): 115-138.

Audiovisual Works

  • “REHAVi (Timekeepers)” –– (2016) Director, editor, producer and cinematographer. Short narrative film about Sufism and music in Turkey. 29:40 min, Spanish, Turkish with English subtitles. The film was premiered at the Musicology Department of Medeniyet University in Istanbul, and at the International House of Philadelphia in 2017. Funded by the UPENN Music Department and Camra at Penn. [Trailer] https://vimeo.com/210058037.
  • “STABZ”–– (2016) Director, editor, producer and cinematographer. Video that accompanies the sonic installation entitled “Sound of consciousness and noise abatement at Van Pelt Library.” (https://vimeo.com/164540799).
  • “SHORT HISTORY OF TURKISH MUSIC”–– (2007) Scrip writer and performer. Essay film produced by University of Antioquia TV in collaboration with the Department of Arts of the Antioquia University and the Musicology Department of the Istanbul Technical University, 2007. The film has a length of fifty minutes and it is spoken in Turkish languages with Spanish subtitles. (https://vimeo.com/192804765)
  • “HOJA DE PALMA”–– (2006)Presenter and performer. Didactic concert for University of Antioquia TV produced by the Department of Arts of the Antioquia University. The program has a length of sixty minutes and it is spoken in Turkish languages with Spanish subtitles. (https://vimeo.com/192804235)

Podcasts

  • “Tataroko”–– (2016) twelve bilingual (Spanish-Cubeo) radio podcasts about Tukanoan music broadcasted at the Northwestern Amazon between January-May. (https://middleear.net/tataroko/)

Composition and music releases

  • “Sinónimo Trabazón” –– (2015) Musical composition commissioned for a piece of contemporary dance directed by Beatriz Velez, funded by the Colombian Ministry of Culture.