Silent Choir

This piece is about ruins. Ruins that are catalysts for concepts such as emergence and action.

Cement or ‘liquid stone’ is a material that was used by the Roman and Greek empires and has a volcanic origin. More elaborate mixes of limestone, sand, and water gave the recipe of concrete, transforming fossil fuels into the building blocks of modern society. This material is associated with the modernist movement, and with this, associated with forms of oppression, imperialism, control, mass production and standardization of daily life. Let’s not forget about climate change and how the extraction of this material has reshapes the ocean floors and many ecosystems.

This installation is composed by a silent choir of 8 concrete blocks. They are perceived as silent because they are unheard, voices that have been silenced by perspective, but if you pay close attention you can hear their rebellion song. They are singing the song ‘Demolición’ (demolition) from the Peruvian band Los Saicos, released in the 60s, contextualizing us in the middle of the immense modernist reforms in South America. The 8 concrete voices are singing about demolishing the train station, about freeing themselves from imperialist movements. Los Saicos is considered by many the first Punk band in the world, or proto-punk, directly from Peru to the rest of the world. This is in itself a rebellious act that emerges in the context of a global era that celebrates fossil fuels and economies of extraction. The silent song is composed of voices, sounds of concrete being prepared, sounds from the ocean floor and sounds of demolitions. This piece also touches on relationships with matter through the exploration of the ideas of augmented materiality via transductions, resonances, and vibrations.