FUTURE TRADITIONS DAY 3: Premieres of Original Works and Collaborations
estela
by Angelica Negrón
estela is a living soundscape inspired by the botanical illustrations of Chilean artist Andrea Wolf which she digitally manipulates with a pixel-sorting algorithm. The piece incorporates field recordings from Bosque Toro Negro in Ciales, Puerto Rico with found sounds controlled by the MIDI Sprout which translates plants' biorhythms into music. Connecting two electrodes to the leaves of a small Zamioculcas new rhythms and melodic gestures are generated by detecting the slight electrical variations in the plant which are then translated to MIDI data and mapped to sounds from my kitchen including coffee beans and metal pots and pans. With this process, I intend to activate and make audible the secret life of plants to evoke distant landscapes connected to personal memories of places and spaces that are far away from me. Originally written as a sonic environment for Andrea Wolf’s virtual exhibition “After Nature”, this special live performance explores an extended version of estela.
Atavism(o)
by José Martinez
This collaboration with dance explores sounds and movements from traditional Colombian music as they reappear into the synthetic sonic world of electronics, accompanied by a reinterpreted and abstract movement. Seeking to preserve the tradition, this proposed mutation also looks for an alternative meaning; one that doesn’t overwrite that past, but that expands upon its own definition.
Music: José Martínez; Dance: Laura Moreno; Art: Sara Martínez (Sathiri); Video: La Ruta Studio
Bomba Liberté
A collaboration between Las Raras and Tambores del Pueblo, Bomba Liberté explores themes of freedom, futurity, and possibility through a surreal audiovisual journey. Puerto Rican bomba is an Afro-diasporic musical practice that began in the 1600s and is rooted in West African drumming and dance traditions. In a suite of five videos, both old and new bomba songs are re-imagined and re-contextualized as Afro-futuristic audiovisual works that evoke a sense of multiplicitous time-space travel.
Musical compositions: Felix Alduen, Rafael Cepeda Atiles, Soreimi Bezarea Montalvo, Lero Martinez, Wilfredo Burgos
Music performance: Tambores del Pueblo – Wilfredo Burgos: (voz, maraca); Karolina Arocho (coro, bailadora); Adam Rosario: (barril primo)
Alejandro Cotto (barril buleador, coro)
John Bimbiras (barril de cua, cuatro)
Music production: Jeannelle Ramirez
Video Designer: Ana Maria Morales