27
FriThis year’s exhibition takes as its focus the history and current state of electronic music and sound art in Mexico, guiding visitors through the various different musical styles and sound experiments that have emerged in the country since the beginning of the 20th century.
Curated by sound researcher Carlos Prieto Acevedo, the exhibition features work by a number of active members of the Mexican sound art community, including Ariel Guzik, Angélica Castelló, Guillermo Galindo, Roberto Morales Manzaneres, Verónica Gerber, Mario de Vega and Carlos Sandoval. Talks and performances featuring Mexican music from the last 20 years as well as reworks and reconstructions of pieces from the beginnings of experimental music in Mexico link the exhibition to a larger international context.
→ More information on the Exhibition
“Constellations of the Audio-Machine in Mexico” at CTM 2017 is funded by the FONCA (National Fund for the Arts and Culture, Mexico), AMEXCID (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico / Dual year Mexico-Germany program) and Fundación Cultural Bancomer.
Mexico City native Carlos Prieto Acevedo studied philosophy at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and specializes in aesthetic theory. He has worked extensively in diverse artistic and editorial forms, and his own research is concerned with the archive in relation to sound art and music and how it allows us to form a critique of modernity.
Using field recordings, radio and cassette devices, composer and sound artist Angelica Castelló journeys through the enigmatic land of lost memories, death and traumatic encounters. Born in Mexico City, Castelló studied classical recorder in Montreal and Amsterdam before settling in Vienna, where she currently lives and teaches.
Mario de Vega is a Mexico City-born experimental sound artist. His works include site-specific interventions and experiments in psychoacoustics that frequently push the limits of audio perception. He uses challenging frequencies said to induce visceral reactions in the audience, and sound as a tool to confront contemporary issues around and personal experiences of vulnerability.
Experimental composer, sonic architect, performance artist and Jungian tarotist Guillermo Galindo redefines the conventional boundaries of music and the art of music composition. Galindo’s broad interpretation of concepts such as musical form, time perception, music notation, sonic archetypes and his original use of sonic devices span through a wide spectrum of output.
Félix Blume is a sound artist and sound engineer. He currently works and lives between Mexico, France and Belgium. His personal work is based on field recordings using sound as a basic material in various audio works, videos, actions and installations. He also works with communities in public spaces.
Ariel Guzik is an artist, musician, researcher, herbalist and inventor, self-taught in various disciplines: electromagnetic theory, electronic engineering, physics, physiology and traditional herbal medicine. His research reflects an intimate need to generate an atmosphere that fosters to the re-enchantment of the world, seeking to preserve the mystery rather than decipher it.
Verónica Gerber Bicecci is a visual artist and writer. She has led workshops on visual writing, abstract writing, and mural writing in numerous institutions across Mexico, as well as courses in the theory of art and drawing in higher artistic education programmes. She is an editor with Tumbona Ediciones, a publishing cooperative with a catalogue that explores the intersections between literature and art, and coordinates the Seminario de Producción Fotográfica (photographic production seminar) at Centro de la Imagen.
Roberto Morales-Manzanares is a musician, composer, performer, researcher and professor. Born in Mexico City, he began his musical training in national folkloric music, learning harps from Veracruz, Michoacán and Chiapas, as well as different kinds of flutes from several regions. Morales completed a Ph.D in composition at UC Berkeley.
Composer and multimedia artist Carlos Sandoval was born in Mexico City in 1956 and holds dual Mexican-German nationality. His work is known for its synthesis of art, nature and technology. He is a fellow of the Mexican Sistema Nacional de Creadores (1999 to date), one of the most important recognitions from the Mexican federal government for outstanding artistic trajectories.