La Serpiente Delirante
[With LA CHIMUCHINA, Nia de Indias, and friends]
Various artists were invited to participate in a procession that was carried from the Fine Arts Museum to the Contemporary Arts Museum (the buildings are connected) for one of the opening nights of the 14th Biennial. The procession was carried out in the form of the Andean ritual “Bailes Chinos”, which involves blowing repeatedly a complex geometry flute and following a choreography. The sound from these flutes is known for generating a strenuous sound called “riven sound”, which was used to connect to the cosmos in times of harvest.
The artist Nicole L’Huillier (MIT Media Lab) was leading the performance with a magnetic waves microphone that was simultaneously amplified with a portable speaker. We also decided to send the sound of the Loa river to a radio signal using a pirate radio, and selected people in the audience tuned to it at the moment of the procession.
All of these sounds and the movements coming from the procession created an enormous saturation of the sonic landscape within the museum, and then in the neighbor museum that was having its own opening. The people participating in the procession –due to the physical performance and the strong breath work– entered a trance that culminated with an improvised choir of voices, taking advantage of the beautiful reverberation provided by the old buildings.
The following day, 18th of October, a revolution started in the city of Santiago, and the Museum had to close its doors for weeks. After this experience, all the performances for the biennial were adapted into rituals.
14th Media Art Biennial, Santiago de Chile, October 2019 [Text by curator AnaRosa Ibañez]
Photos by Benjamin Matte, Bienal de Artes Mediales.
