Martín Rodríguez

Silent Vectors: Sound under Quarantine

July 19, 2020

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.

Inspiré par des expériences autobiographiques, le travail de Martín Rodríguez cherche à explorer une narration à travers la juxtaposition des sons. En tant qu'artiste multidisciplinaire et commissaire indépendant, il établit des liens entre les communications intrinsèques avec le son pour créer des expériences émotives qui s'engagent dans le présent. Actuellement, ses performances, ses installations et ses interventions utilisent des techniques non conventionnelles pour exposer les rythmes, les harmonies et les mélodies que l'on retrouve dans les fissures du spectre radio et et l'environnement naturel. Les œuvres de Rodríguez ont notamment été présentées par le Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, le MUAC (CDMX), la Fonderie Darling, Spektrum (Berlin), et ainsi que lors de diverses représentations au Canada et aux États-Unis.