- 26 Mar 2021 4pm UTC
- dur 8min
Cuerpo y Suelo from Balam Ronan on Vimeo.
Most of my projects happen in public spaces, or are recordings of the street, of people. But when the confinement began due to Covid-19, it was no longer possible for me to continue with my projects in the same way. When looking for other ways of working with sound and only with the means I had at my disposal, I made this sound performance with the resources I had at hand: a microphone, a guitar amplifier, the floor and my body. However, I did not use the microphone or amplifier in the same way they were designed, it is not a work that “sound good”, the sound is muddy and harsh, it almost hurts to ear it. It is an attempt to listen to and use those other sounds, those sounds that are diminished, cut off and excluded from a sound work. And so, I allowed myself to explore the noise that occurs when dragging the microphone on the ground, the friction of the microphone on my body, increasing or decreasing the reverb and the bass, middle and treble sounds, the volume, the feedback produced depending on the distance between the amplifier and the microphone, and other sounds that you had not planned to come out. It is a more personal work, but I see it as a continuation, a re-reading of my previous projects, in which I seek to listen to the voices, sounds, noises and silences of ordinary people, who are usually not heard. I would like to read the noise of this improvisation as a scream, as an amplification of these Other sounds, those that come from below, those that are discriminated against, those that are condemned, those that are not heard. I would like to read the noise of this improvisation as the voices excluded from a system that was not designed to include everyone. Like the noise of voices that, although they are not usually paid attention to, are always present, in another frequency, in another volume, in another waveform, in another harmony, but present, and with the right to exist. I would like to read the noise of this improvisation as an attempt to hear those other sounds, those other voices. I made a recording of this performance at my family’s house in Mexico.
BIO: Balam Ronan He lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland, since January 2018. His work has focused on study listening and soundscape, field recordings, experimental music and practices of sound art, action art, participatory / relational art in public spaces. He has collaborated on projects of visual arts, contemporary dance and theater. He has a bachelor’s degree in Music with line terminal in Musical Composition at the Autonomous University of Queretaro, Mexico. He is currently pursuing a Master\’s Degree in Critical, Curatorial, Cybermedia at the Haute École d\’Art et Design in Geneva, Switzerland. His work has been presented in Queretaro, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla (MX), Buenos Aires, Cordova (AR), Washington DC (US), Athens (GR), Lisbon (PT), Berlin (DE), Quito (EC), Bogota (CO), Belo Horizonte (BR), Helsinki (FI), Geneva (CH), Florence (IT), Bangor (UK), Santa Cruz (BO), Lima (PE) and Rijeka (HR). Has released his work in the netlabels Green Field Recordings, Echomusic, Sonic Terrain, La Escucha Atenta, Auriculab, Suplex, Archivo Usted no está aquí, Sónec and Noise à Noise. He was a finalist of the International Festival of Electronic Arts and Video Transitio_mx 03, and a fellow of the Incentives Program for Creation and Artistic Development of Young Artists 2008 of the Institute of Querétaro for Culture and Arts (IQCA), of a variety of training programs of the Mexican Center for Music and Sound Art (CMMAS, 2009-2010), of the Young Artists Program 2010-2011 of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA), of the Incentives Program for Artistic Production “Apoyarte” 2011 and 2015 of the IQCA and of the Artistic Residency Program 2011 of the FONCA – CONACYT to make a residency in Argentina. ARTIST’S WEBSITE