For the Enclave Festival 2023 in Mexico, DC I was commissioned to collaborate with the amazing Mexican interdisciplinary artist and researcher of sound, Daniel Lara Ballesteros.
This 13th edition of Enclave explored the theme of ACOUSTIC EMERGENCY POETICS: dialogues, sound and poetic interventions.
transmissions/transmisiones
transmissions/transmisiones imagines the communication spaces in between Mexico and London. Sound as it is translated into electricity and transmitted along deep sea cables on the ocean into each other´s studios. The piece tells the imaginary story of sound as it travels, backward and forwards, perhaps meeting its own shadow on the way, or meeting other transmissions as they travel.
There are almost 1.5 million kilometres of submarine fiber optic cables on the ocean floor that underpin the entire global internet. Absolutely vital to current human life, amazing in its ability to connect us across vast distances, this same ability also creates problems, not least by the massive amount of energy that is being consumed
Yet these trans-oceanic communication networks have their parallels in the natural world. The human body, for example, is a network of arteries, organs and tissues that communicate with each other. It is a circuit of pulse-electrical variables, with which comes the commitment to the languages of sound as a means of communication between the collaborating artists, starting perhaps from the familiarity that we have towards the receptivity of our bodies to sound vibrations.
The final composition moves through different episodes that invite us to different ways of being, perceiving or interpreting these ideas. We used synths, voice and electronics to compose this piece and for us it expresses the beauty of communication alongside a dystopian aftertaste.
The video is based on footage located underneath a commercial airplane as it travels. The scenes were transmitted onto a cabin screen and captured with a mobile phone. For us, it captures the mood of the audio and also juxtapose the transmission of signals with that of light and an actual human being from one content to another.
Video of the piece as it was screened in Mexico:
Video of the hybrid launch event at Goldsmiths:
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.