(DIS)CONTINUED, 2020

SOUND ART INSTALLATION, 

CLEAR ACRYLICS, SOUND SYSTEM IN LOOP 1'5W MINIATURE SPEAKERS, COPPER CABLES, 190G FRAMED PAPERS, VARIABLE MEASURES

NOTE: HERE I SHOW 7 OF THE 13 ROUTES

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This proposal was born as an exercise in exploration, documentation and representation of the soundscape of the City of London after the impact of the pandemic crisis in which we still find ourselves. I analyse, through the socio-urban context of the global city, the implications within the sound space as a result of the different measures, anxieties and sensitivities that we are experiencing in this complex battle to defeat Covid-19. The economic slowdown, the interruption of activities, the rules of social interconnection subject to physical distancing, the different movement and connectivity of masses within the city, the new physical borders or the alternatives of a new mobility directly affect the soundscape, altering the atmosphere and sound design of the city and therefore its feelings to offer a different mental and emotional image. 

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Through my own performative action, I travel through the City of London through previously traced routes and in which I make field recordings of the soundscape during the tour. By appropriating the real sound material and using it as a conceptual reference, I create a new perverted phonography aims to lead the viewer to create new experiences, to a new field of exploration in which the sound library serves the purpose of establishing a message and telling a story.

The "intermedia" piece is conceived as a sound installation where the sculptural element not only appears as an aesthetic solution, but also marks the path to follow. I incorporate sound as the main form of expression, but it is not directed exclusively at the ears or the gaze in the form of a visual metaphor, but rather involves the whole body.

The work is configured within the exhibition space, recreating the geographical and spatial arrangement of the routes, represented by means of suspended transparent acrylic panels containing loudspeakers. The resulting composition is a geometry that offers changing perspectives and planes through the transparencies and invites us to a slow speed recognition. These transparencies, offer to the visual landscape of the piece the presence of other spectators, integrating them and changing our perception of it. At the same time, it distances us from others, representing something very present in these times of pandemic. The measurements of each panel respond to the distances of the different routes translated into linear meters (1.5 miles = 1.5 meters) which function as walls of sound and shape it as a sculptural material. The audios are projected in a loop and do not fulfill an opening or closing function but are seen as an intermediate stage. The low volume invites us to carefully listen to the sound and triggers the visitor's curiosity. The sound bounces and its subsequent resonances act on the perception of it, which helps us to obtain a more tangible experience of space. In this way, the whole of the piece emerges as an expansion of three-dimensionality, in which the axes in which the materials are organized are no longer exclusively internal to the work itself, but also external to it.

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All the routes are accompanied by texts in descriptive but fragmented prose, which gives the possibility to link phrases and rhythms and follow a narrative sequence, at least temporarily. Composed of metaphors and lyrical resources as the main element, they are based on passages of the route, between the objective and subjective, sensations and thoughts, the architectural landscape, the history or curiosities of the city. An intimate look from my own reality and circumstances, which offers the whole piece my own impressions and thoughts, my fears and anxieties and the adaptation of my conscience to the extreme vulnerability in the face of this new situation.