Programming

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world, including the soundscapes of our environment. Silent Vectors: Sound under Quarantine is a series of environmental sound recordings that focus on urban silences resulting from protective measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The recorded sound not only serves as audible documentation of an urban metropolis during a pandemic, but also the sound of our collective resistance. The silences heard personify the societies mobilized against a common threat.

These recordings are inspired by the concepts explored in the book Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resistance by Brandon LaBelle, which discusses how "individuals and collectivities creatively negotiate systems of domination, gaining moment and guidance through listening and being heard, sound and unsounding particular acoustics of assembly and resistance." In this case, the sounds heard are the absence of human activity because it is through this absence of community gathering that society is able to fight the virus. It is a unique sound experience because too often the sounds of resistance are represented by the mobilization of protests with shouts, hits on pans or by the sounds of war with bombs and explosions.

For the presentation with DARE-DARE, Rodríguez ask listeners to meet in specific parks in order to create a common listening experience at a safe distance. During the live broadcast, Rodríguez share his creative process, present some of his silences recorded in the past 4 months, and offer a guided listening experience of their environment.

Inspired by autobiographical experiences, Martín Rodríguez's work seeks to explore a narrative through the juxtaposition of sound. As a multidisciplinary artist and independent curator, he links intrinsic communications with sound to create emotional experiences that engage with the present. Currently, his performances, installations and interventions use unconventional techniques to expose the rhythms, harmonies and melodies found in the cracks of the radio spectrum and the natural environment. Rodríguez's work has been presented by the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, MUAC (CDMX), Darling Foundry, Spektrum (Berlin), and in various performances in Canada and the United States.