Arias Ricardo_LMJ 23

8/13/2019 Arias Ricardo_LMJ 23

1/6

As both a term and a practice, sound art has become increas- ingly prominent since the late 1990s. The label has been embracedby artists, curators and critics, and the number of museum andgallery exhibits dedicated to (or prominently featuring) soundart has grown exponentially in recent years. While showcasing anew generation of audio artists, many of these exhibitions havealso traced a genealogy of sound art that stretches back to theemergence of the art form in the 1960s and have thus given the

current boom an historical footing.Christoph Cox [1]

The span of years since the dawn of the new millennium haswitnessed a remarkable increase in shows, exhibitions and pro- grammes devoted to a hybrid, elusive and not-too-clear form ofcreative expression which has come to be known as sound art.

Daniela Cascella [2]

As Cascella observes in the above epigraph, sound art indeedseems to be blossoming worldwide in the new millennium.Critical and scholarly attention to this artistic practice and,more broadly, to sound as an object of study, are also prolif-erating [3].

In trying to understand this burst of activity in sound art, itis imperative to start broadening our eld of vision to include what is being done beyond Europe, North America and Japanin order to have a truly global perspective on the issue [4]. Itis my intent with this paper to contribute in this respect bygiving a glimpse of what is being done in my current place ofresidence, Colombia.

SOUND A RT PRACTICE IN COLOMBIA Sound art activity in Colombia has abounded in the last de-cade, as evidenced by the considerable number of shows focus-ing on sound works by Colombian artists in recent years [5].

Some of the artists involved in these shows, such as RobertoGarca, Juan Reyes, Mauricio Bejarano, Alba Fernanda Trianaand I, have been working with sound for quite some time,and while our work has been categorized as experimental orelectroacoustic music, we are now considered to be sound art-ists [6]. Such rebranding has had an effect on the work andon the way the artists view it, prompting exploration of areasentered only occasionally in the past, such as sound instal-

lation and sculpture [7]. A secondgroup of sound artists, active in theColombian art scene today, thatbegan working in the 1990s, suchas Ana Mara Romano, Rodrigo Re-strepo and Daniel Prieto, have beenable to move more swiftly betweencategories. The generation of those

who became active in the new mil-lennium, such as David Vlez, Leo-nel Vsquez, caro Zorbar, JuanSebastin Suanca and Carlos Bonil,does not seem to be troubled by be-ing perceived as sound artists. They simply embrace sounas another material at their disposal to realize their artistiprojects.

This gradual shift in terminology from musicbe it experimental, electronic or electroacoustictoward sound arthat has occurred in the last 2 decades echoes the oppositiobetweenmusic and noise that Christoph Cox puts forth in de- veloping an ontology of sound [8]. This agreement betweepractice and theoretical discourse suggests that we may indee

be experiencing a signicant paradigm shift in our awarenesand use of sound. This predicament leads us to think that athis point in the history of Western Culture, an art practic with sound, sound art, that is different from music is indeecoming into its own and may need to rely no longer on existincategories and traditions but on a renewed appraisal of sounitself to justify its existence.

R ODRIGO R ESTREPO, CARO ZORBAR AND LEONEL V SQUEZThe three artists whose work I present here belong to thsecond and third generational groups outlined above. I havchosen these particular artists, Rodrigo Restrepo (b. Bogot1977), Leonel Vsquez (Bogot, 1981) and caro Zorbar (Bo-got, 1977), because each of them represents a distinct poinin the continuum between music and sound art. Each of themalso has a distinct approach to their use of technology and very personal conception of space and time.

Restrepo is a musician and composer by training but hagradually drifted away from conventional musical practicinto hybrid, interdisciplinary ways of conceiving and presening his work. Zorbar holds degrees in lm, television and narts and considers sound an important element among themany media he uses to realize his ideas. Leonel Vsquez, aan artist by training, has deliberately and decidedly chose

2013 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 23, pp. 4146, 2013 41

Ricardo Arias (composer, sound artist, educator), Departamento de Arte Universidad deLos Andes, Carrera 1 No. 18-10, ocina S-201, Colombia. E-mail: .

See the Webliography at the end of this article for links to videos of works discussed here.

A B S T R A C T

Sound art activity inColombia has proliferated inthe last decade, as evidenceby the considerable numberof shows focusing on soundworks by Colombian artistsin recent years. The authorpresents three artistsRodrRestrepo, Leonel Vsquez acaro Zorbareach of whomrepresents a distinct point incontinuum between music asound art. The artists indivand distinct approaches to thuse of technology and their

personal conceptions of spaand time are discussed.

Rakes, Live Deaths andModied Cassette Players:Three Contemporary Sound Artists from Colombia

Ricardo Arias


2/642 Arias, Rakes, Live Deaths, Cassette Players

presenting soundwas theHabitfono (Sound Room) (2005) (Fig. 1), a multi-timbral instrument (a sound sculpture),a stage the size of a small room [11].

The experience of creating theHabi- tfono , says Restrepo, brought me evercloser, yet not fully consciously, to therealm of sound art, in which the spatialdimension of the work gains a greaterimportance in relation to its temporal di-mension [12]. The space that Restrepodiscovered in the realm of sound art wasnot the same loudspeaker space (oracousmatic, simulated space) that he hadexplored in his electroacoustic pieces.This new space is the actual space thatthe sculpture proposes in relation to thebody of the performer. The experienceof space facilitated by theHabitfono canbe understood through Campesato, whocites Bleser and Salters four modes ofexperiencing space and posits them asappropriate for understanding the useof space in sound art:

One can experience space in four modes:social, as an arena for community cohe-sion; navigational, as local objects andgeometries that combine into a spatialgeometry; aesthetic, as an enhanced aes-thetic texture; and musical, as an artisticextension of instruments [13].

Restrepo has continued to develop his work, taking advantage of the possibili-ties opened up to him by the notion ofsound art and adopting the computeras his main technological aid. More re-cent works include interactive sculpturalstructures (Girfono , 2011) (Fig. 2) andinterfaces for the performative control

grammer , composer andartist are all incom-plete and problematic terms. The sameholds true for the terms used to describeparticular works, such assound art , music , performance , installation , or sculpture .Consequently I prefer to think of myselfas someone who exercises his creativity, which is a factor common to all the cat-egories just mentioned [10].

One of Restrepos works that rst sig-naled a shift away from traditional mu-sical practicesor more generally awayfrom a strictly performative mode of

to carry out his research projects andcreative output through the medium ofsound.

Towardthe Sonorous :Rodrigo RestrepoRestrepo views his own work as a wide,open-ended endeavor that goes beyondtraditional ideas of music. In the earlystages of his career, Restrepos practice with sound developed through two par-allel paths: (1) his work in a traditionalmanner as a composer of tape piecescarefully crafted in the studio and re-sulting in fixed compositions meantfor reproduction through loudspeakers(through his work with loudspeakershe became aware of the compositionalimportance of the spatial dimension ofsound) and (2) his work in free impro- visation, which afforded an opportunityto work directly with acoustic soundsources, exploring them in relation tohis body and his physical gestures andnot worrying as much about method ornal results.

As he worked on these two musicalpractices, Restrepo gradually started torealize that music, orthe musical , was butone aspect of a much wider universe thatoffered him even greater creative possi-bilities: that ofsound , or the sonorous [9].He thus came to an understanding of his work not just as music or art but in termsof the general attribute ofcreativity .

In trying to dene my work I have tendednot to worry too much about the name orlabel I should assign to it.Musician , pro-

Fig. 1. Rodrigo Restrepo,Habitfono , Teatro Delia Zapata, Bogot, 2005. ( RodrigoRestrepo)

Fig. 2. Rodrigo Restrepo,Girfono , Densidades: Arte Sonoro en Colombia exhibition,Universidad de Los Andes, Bogot, 2011. ( Rodrigo Restrepo)


3/6

Arias, Rakes, Live Deaths, Cassette Players 43

I love the idea of fragility. I think it issomething that characterizes human na-ture. So I work with machines, soundsand projections, in circumstances thatevoke interpersonal relations. I try to un-fold and underscore the fragility inher-ent to certain interpersonal connectionsin which I nd a constant tension [18].

Another work in the series of as-sisted installations,Ventilador (Ventila-tor) (Assisted Installation #6) (Fig. 4)(see Webliography), consists of a spa-

tial arrangement of various elements: aloudspeaker, a swinging fan, a modiedcassette player and an audio cassette. A nal aspect of Zorbars work is much moreevident in this piece than in the previousone: The sound material, a song in thiscase, is crucial to the expressive effectof the installation. The character of thesong is clearly pathological and acts as what Salom Voegelin has called sonicmemory material [19], and it completesthe sentimental character suggested bythe fragility and instability expressed bythe way the elements of the piece are

arranged. The music acts as a pathetictrigger [20], accomplishing, in my viewa sentimental engagement on the part ofthe viewer.

Live Deaths and Silent Screams:Leonel VsquezLeonel Vsquez develops his creativeprocess from the vantage point of doingand thinking with sound [21], and thisprocess can take the form of sculptures,installations, sonic architectures, actionsand videos [22]. His activities includeteaching and researching, always in and

around the experience of sound: I ex-periment with sound as a malleable mate-rial, as the form and content of sensoryexperience [23]. His work not only in- volves a critical reection on the techno-logical means of sound production andreproduction but also places a great dealof emphasis on listening, not only as aninstrument of perception but as a prob-

of live audio signal processing (Raking ,2012) (see Webliography at the end ofthis article for video documentation ofboth of these pieces).

caro ZorbarsSentimental Machinery caro Zorbar is, in his own words, a Co-lombian artist who works with machines,songs, sounds and projections [14].From this short statement, it is clear thatsound is a very important aspect of Zor-bars work. He, however, does not think

of himself as a sound artist: Sound always represents 50% of the work and the visual aspects (be they sculptural or vid-eographic) the other 50% [15]. Most ofhis works are performative and have a -nite, often narrative, temporality. Someof his works require his presence and hisintervention in order to be activated. Hecalls them assisted installations. In Zor-bars own words:

I have chosen to refer to some of my works, those which exhibit a particulartemporal quality and that require mypresence in order to function, as assisted

installations. In these installations I haveto pay close attention to things like theduration of a song, or I have to wind upa music box, nd the exact place whereI have to drop the needle on a record,or change, rewind or thread a cassettetape [16].

Swan Lake (Assisted Installation #5) from2006 (Fig. 3) (see Webliography) is onesuch assisted installation consisting of anumber of music box internal mecha-nisms placed over a speaker cabinet for

acoustic amplification, and providessome further clues about various aspectsof Zorbars work. The duration of thesound aspect of the work is determinedby the time it takes the assistant to windup all the music box mechanisms andthe time it takes for them to unwind. Inthis case Zorbar uses mechanical, analogtechnology, which is a signature elementof his artistic practice. Zorbar states: Ilike to discover how things work. In thisrespect, analog technology is more inter-esting to me because it is a technology the

functioning of which can be discernedthrough simple observation [17].Swan Lake is installed in a deliberately

unpretentious, precarious and fragilemanner. Fragility and its expressionthrough a very particular use of analogmachinery is yet another characteristic ofZorbars work and it is at the service ofthe artists ultimate expressive intentions.

Fig. 3. caro Zorbar,Swan Lake (Assisted Installation #5), 2006. ( Icaro Zorbar)

Fig. 4. caro Zorbar,Ventilador (AssistedInstallation #6),

2007. ( IcaroZorbar)



lem of the relation between subjects,spaces, objects, and the environment ingeneral [24]. His concern with the indi- vidual/personal and collective/social di-mensions of sound makes Vsquezs workmore political than that of Restrepo orZorbar, without being simplistic or pam-phleteering. His conception of sound in- volves the emotions, as does Zorbars, butis less concerned with the cultural repre-sentations of these emotions than withtheir experiencing and exteriorization. Vsquez conceives of sound and silenceas manifestations of vital forces.

I am interested in thinking about thepotentialities of sound to congure theexpressive components of a space, ofbodies, of a series of gestures, so as toattain the poetic conformation of a ter-ritory that invites us to experiment with

Deaths), is an installation/action thattakes place within a constructed acousticspace contained inside the gallery space[26]. The artist/performer activates withhis breath and for a very long time aninstrument that is at once a container (abox) and a ute. This box is lled with thebones of an unknown person or persons[27]. The realization of the piece takesthe form of a performance that seeks,through this peculiar sound-producingobject and its intensely focused and pro-longed ritualistic performance, both toenact a symbolic reunication betweenthe living and the anonymous dead andto provide the dead with a dignied andproper place of rest in the underworld[28] (Fig. 6) (see Webliography).

that which produces tears, screams, si-lences: human emotions [25].

El Grito (The Scream) (2011) is a sculp-tural piece, or rather a unique piece offurniture that expresses the artists con-cerns quite eloquently through an im-plied use of sound (the piece is silent).

The object consists of a table that con-tains a naturally mummied body of a catthat cannot be clearly discerned throughthe opaque piece of glass used as thetabletop. There is a black structure at-tached to the table that invites the viewerto take a peek, at which point he/she isconfronted with the cats face frozen inthe midst of a terrifying cry (Fig. 5).

Another piece from 2011 that containsstrong affective elements and politicalconnotations, titledMuertes Vivas (Live

Fig. 5. Leonel Vsquez,El Grito (The Scream), 2011. ( Leonel Vsquez)


5/6

Arias, Rakes, Live Deaths, Cassette Players 45

in ways that do not conform strictly tocanonical forms of the practice. Whetherthis is a particularity of sound art madein Colombia or, more broadly, in Latin America is yet to be explored.

References and Notes1. Christoph Cox, Sound Art and the Sonic Uncon-scious,Organised Sound 14 (2009) pp. 1926.

2. Daniela Cascella, Watch This Sound (2007): (Retrieved 20 December 2012).

3. Sound is rapidly gaining importance for instancein anthropology. See Louise Mentjes, Ana MaraOchoa, Thomas Porcello and David W. Samuels,Soundscapes: Toward an Sounded Anthropology,The Annual Review of Anthropology 38 (2010) pp. 329345: (Retrieved 15 December 2012). See alsoSound Stud- ies , an interdisciplinary eld of study in the humansciences: Jonathan Sterne, ed.,The Sound StudiesReader (New York, NY: Routledge, 2012).

4. Most of the literature that is taken into accountin the discussion about the denition and history ofsound art often fails to include references to work,both artistic and scholarly, originating in the rest ofthe world. It is telling, for example, that Engstrmand Stjerna, in their efforts to attain an understand-

ing for how cultural discourses are created andthrough this obtain perspectives on how artistic elds

scribing his pieceLive Deaths . This is apeculiar trait if one considers that au-tonomous and continuous installationsare often considered to be the clearestexpression of sound art. Restrepos, Zor-bars and Vsquezs works all conformto the canonical position that broadlydenes sound art as closely related toinstallation art or to an expanded con-cept of sculpture [29] and at the sametime counter this notions twin idea thatsound art has been released from thetraditional musical act of performing[30]. Mexican composer and sound artistManuel Rocha Iturbide ascribes a slightlymore inclusive eld of activity to soundart, which might be well suited to char-acterize the artists discussed here, whenhe states that, for him, sound art refersto, above all: sound sculpture, sound in-stallation, and intermedia works in whichsound is the main element (excludingdance and theater) such as sound per-formance [31].

In short, the artists presented in thisessay are producing sound artworks thatstem from very idiosyncratic concerns,

CONCLUSIONThe works of the three artists discussedhere are not by any means representativeof prevailing trends or styles in Colom-bian sound art. A wider survey reveals, asit does in most other parts of the world, arichly varied range of artistic approachesto sound.

The three artists discussed use differ-ent and varied technologies accordingto the conceptual requirements of eachparticular work. Their technologicalchoices and solutions are subservient totheir ideas.

Another interesting aspect of the works of Restrepo, Zorbar and Vsquezis the recurrent use of nite and perfor-mative strategies to present their pieces,even when they are conceived sculptur-ally or as installations: Restrepo buildsand performs instrumental objects/systems that are also sculptures or instal-lations; Zorbar has coined the term as-sisted installations to refer to his hybridperformative constructions; and Vsquezspeaks of installation/action when de-

Fig. 6. Leonel Vsquez,Muertes Vivas (Live Deaths), 2011. ( Leonel Vsquez)



(2003): (Retrieved 20 December 2012).

8. At its best, sound art opens up or calls atten-tion to an auditory unconscious, atranscendental orvirtual domain of sound that has steadily come toprominence over the course of the twentieth century.In contrast with music, speech and signal, I will callthis domainnoise , though we will see that the reachof this term extends far beyond that of its ordinaryusage. Christoph Cox, Sound Art and the SonicUnconscious,Organised Sound 14 (2009) p. 19.

9. Personal communication with the author, 21 De-cember 2012.

10. See [9].11. See [9].

12. See [9].

13. Lilian Campesato, A Metamorphosis of theMuses: Referential and Contextual Aspects in Sound Art,Organised Sound 14 (2009) p. 30.

14. From caro Zorbars web site: .

15. Personal communication with the author, 28December 2012.

16. Document from an exhibition of Zorbars workat Lugar a Dudas gallery in Cali, Colombia, AugustSeptember 2011: (Retrieved 15 December2012, authors translation).

17. See [16].

18. See [16].

19. Salom Voegelin, Sonic Memory Material as Pa-thetic Trigger,Organised Sound 11 (2006) pp. 1318.

20. Voegelin [19].

21. Personal communication with the author, 29December 2012.

22. See [21].

23. See [21].

24. See [21].

25. See [21].

26. See [21].

of activities are dened depending on academic tra-ditions and spheres of written media neglected toinclude the Spanish language (or Chinese, for thatmatter) in their search for the phrase sound art.See Andreas Engstrm and sa Stjerna, Sound Artor Klangkunst? A Reading of the German and Eng-lish Literature on Sound Art,Organised Sound 14 (2009) pp. 1118.5. In the past 2 years alone there have been at leastthree major sound art exhibitions and a series ofsmaller shows exclusively featuring Colombian art-ists. The following is a partial list of events that tookplace mostly in Bogot (there has been a great dealof sound art activity in Medelln as well): In June2010, LA Galera presented a show entitled Drop-

outs, featuring sound works by Juan Reyes andLeonel Vsquez ; in September 2010,two major exhibitions took place that surveyed thecurrent state of sound art in Colombia: Sonare: Arte Sonoro, curated by Mauricio Bejarano andpresented by MAMBO (Bogot Museum of Modern Art), exhibited sound installations and sculptures by14 artists, while Vociferous: Sound Works by 21 Con-temporary Colombian Artists, which I curated and which was presented by Diapason in Brooklyn, NY,featured mostly multichannel sound pieces: . In2011 I curated Densidades: Arte Sonoro en Colom-bia, presented at the Julio Mario Santo Domingoexhibition space at Universidad de Los Andes inBogot and including sound installations and sculp-tures (both sonorous and silent), videos and acous-matic pieces by 31 Colombian artists. More recently,

in August and September 2012, Mauricio Bejaranocurated a smaller exhibition at Espacio Alterno Gal-lery in Bogot, entitled Obras Blancas, silencioselocuentes, featuring sound objects by seven artists.

6. In my 1998 essay From the Margins of the Periph-ery: Music and Technology at the Outskirts of the WestA Personal View, I referred to this genera-tion of artists simply as electronic or electroacousticmusicians and did not even consider labeling themas sound artists. See Ricardo Arias, From the Mar-gins of the Periphery: Music and Technology at theOutskirts of the WestA Personal View,LeonardoMusic Journal 8 (1998) pp. 4954.

7. These are the artists from the transitional gen-eration that Australian composer Chris Mann pos-sibly had in mind when he said, in response to N.B. Aldrichs question What is sound art?: I alwaysthought sound art was a career move . . . a brand-ing exercise. See N.B. Aldrich,What is Sound Art?

27. The bones were found in the cemetery of a neu-ropsychiatric hospital in Vsquezs home town ofSibat, Colombia. There is a mass grave in this cem-etery containing the rest of the hospitals deceasedpatients, the contents of which are in the open air(personal communication with the author, 29 De-cember 2012). This gruesome circumstantial detailis meaningful in the Colombian context in at leasttwo ways: On the one hand it gives a clue as to howlife lost value at certain times and places in this soci-ety; and it is an indirect but evident reference to themany mass graves that have appeared throughoutthe country in the course of the armed conict thathas steadily unfolded for at least the past 60 years.28. See also Leonel Vsquez, Muertes Vivas: sobre

los cuerpos vivos y muertos que no se dejan morir,Masters Thesis, 2010; published on-line at: (Retrieved 18 May 2013).29. Engstrm and Stjerna [4].30. Engstrm and Stjerna [4].31. El arte sonoro es sobre todo: escultura sonora,instalacin sonora y obras intermedia en las que elsonido es el elemento principal (que no sean danzani teatro), como en el performance sonoro (mytranslation). Manuel Rocha Iturbide, Qu es elarte sonoro?: (accessed 18 May 2013).

Webliography Rodrigo Restrepo, Girfono (2011), .Rodrigo Restrepo, Raking (2011): .caro Zorbar, Swan Lake (Assisted Installation #5) (2006):.caro Zorbar, Ventilador (Assisted Installation #6) :.Leonel Vsquez, Muertes Vivas (Live Deaths): (2011).

Manuscript received 2 January 2013.

Ricardo Arias is an experimental musician,sound artist, teacher, researcher and curator.He is currently based in Bogot, where he isAssociate Professor in the Art Department atUniversidad de Los Andes.

Arias Ricardo_LMJ 23

Documents

Transcript of Arias Ricardo_LMJ 23