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2How to study underground music scenes around the world? In this episode of Mental Travelers, Dr. François Mouillot shares his journey as a researcher of underground music, reflecting on disciplinary methodologies and personal experiences across France, Canada, and China.
We discussed:
- 1. François’s path to becoming a researcher of underground music
- 2. The transition of François’s approach from ethnomusicology to cultural studies
- 3. The meaning of studying a “marginalized” topic
- 4. François’s writing and editorial process
- 5. François’s future research plan
- 6. Living with disability
About the host:
Tuoya Wulan (乌兰托雅) is a translator and illustrator from Inner Mongolia, China.
About the Guest：
Dr. François Mouillot is an assistant professor from the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies from McGill University. He is a cultural and media theorist whose research interests include cultural scenes, cultural infrastructures, popular and experimental music, do-it-yourself and improvisation studies, health humanities, digitization/AI in artistic practices, and identity construction in industrialized minority contexts (with extensive ethnographic experience in Hong Kong S.A.R., the province of Québec in Canada, and the Basque region). He is currently leading the Hong Kong Live Music Study, the first survey of the cultural and social value of the live music sector and of its infrastructures (venues, concert organizations, and promotional agencies) across all music genres in Hong Kong.
Related Readings
Fractured Scenes – Underground Music-Making in Hong Kong and East Asia. Palgrave MacMillan.
"Avant-garde and Popular Forms Between Music and Visual Media – Transhistorical and Intermedial Investigations". Cinéma & Cie – International Film Studies Journal, vol. xix no. 33.
"The social and cultural dimension of ‘platforming’ live music: the case of the Hong Kong independent music scene during the Covid-19 pandemic". Popular Communication.
"Hearing the Inaudible: The Hong Kong Experimental Music Scene in the Covid-19 Pandemic". Perfect Beat, 21(2), 123–134.
"Avant into Pop, Pop into Avant. Interplays between Music and Visual Media". Cinéma & Cie – International Film Studies Journal, vol. xix no. 33, pp. 7-19.
"Getting Out of the Black Box: Analogizing the Use of Computers in Electronic Music and Sound Art". Organised Sound, vol. 20 no. 2, pp. 191-199.
"Resisting Poems: Expressions of Dissent and Hegemony in Modern Basque Bertzolaritza", Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation, vol. 5 no. 1, pp. 1-12.
🎧 Listen on Spotify & YouTube
🎼 Special thanks to Xin Ran (忻然) and Wu Wanni (吴宛妮) for composing the original music for this episode.
