9:25 minutes
The project Grabador Fantasma (Phantom Recorder) consists of a communally constructed technological device in Sarayaku ancestral territory. Adrian Balseca’s site-specific composition is an “ecología del paisaje sonoro”, an artifact that collects sounds produced by different organisms, amplifying the complex historical plot of the area. From a traditional Sarayaku Peracian Dacryodes Copal wood barge with a solar cell panel system, an electric motor, a gramophone, and a recording system wireless audio, the specific characteristics of the soundscape are registered and transformed. The project seeks to reveal the modulations of the landscape through the causes and effects of biological (biophonic), geophysical, and man-made (antropofonía) sounds. Recorded on film, the video is inspired by Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo (1982), on the figure of businessman Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald who travelled to the Amazon with his gramophone to make his millions in rubber, aspiring also to build an opera house in the jungle. Balseca explores the colonial violence of which Fitzgerald is emblematic, here using the gramophone to pay close attention to nature. By deviating from a story where the main character is a European industrialist blinded by the promise of rubber and by the work within a territory that resists the oil industry, Balseca denounces a world founded upon extractivist modernity. In its acoustic dimension, the work is an invitation to re-politicize ecology and to rethink the concept of territory. The artist adopts the sound of listening, which, as a tool, a creative means, to orient us towards compassion and care.
Artist Adrian Balseca’s work broadly focuses upon extractivist practices in South America and across the globe, contemplating their ensuing environmental impacts. Producing installation, photographs and objects, the artist explores issues including the history of rubber extraction from the Amazon, the impact of oil spills, and the development of the car industry. His work tracks a trajectory through developmental history that allows for a reflection upon the physical, economic and epistemic violence contained within modes of production at the service of multinational capital. Often beginning with site-specific interventions based around banal yet symbolic objects, the car, a sewer, or a lamp for example, Balseca goes on to explore their manufacturing process, through which we might access questions of economy, nature, power and memory.
The First Known Photograph of the San Francisco Opera | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer upper waypoint Arts & Culture Newly Unearthed: The First Known Photograph of the San Francisco Opera Sarah Hotchkiss Feb 8 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email A detail from an October 1923 photograph of the San Francisco Opera company in the Civic Auditorium shows performers and family in pre-performance street clothes...
Soft Materials is a curious, touching but also disturbing sequence of confrontations between two people: a man and a woman, and machines...
Landslides is a cinematographic essay/poem by Caroline Déodat in which fictional images are the result of research into the memories of a Mauritian dance born during colonial slavery, the Sega...
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Art in the time of COVID-19 and more | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar Via Philippine Daily Inquirer March 19, 2020 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
Book Fair 12pm-7pm, Events 1pm-6:30pm Book Fair Participants: The Basement, Colpa Press, EGGY PRESS, Juana Berrio, LEAP ??? magazine (magazine in residence at Kadist), Matt Borruso, Owl Cave Books, Pier 24 Photography, Publication Studios, Rite Editions, 2nd Floor Projects, San Francisco Cinematheque, TBW Books, and THE THING Quarterly...
Ukraine-Russia / Volleyball by Viktor and Sergiy Kochetov features a concrete monument of women volleyball players before the railway station in the village of Vodyanoye, Kharkiv region...
Les Chenilles by Michelle and Noël Keserwany is a sensual film that translates the source of women’s oppression into the means for their liberation...
Preserving Banksy: public art database to document the UK’s murals Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Art UK news Preserving Banksy: public art database to document the UK’s murals The project, backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, will also capture many of Northern Ireland's politically charged street art works Gareth Harris 9 February 2024 Share Banksy's Escaping Convict at Reading Gaol (2021) is one of the works already documented on Art UK's database © the artist, courtesy of Pest Control Office, 2022...
The latest exhibition at England's Baltic sets a whole new bar for showing art in a climate crisis Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Green is the New Black blog The latest exhibition at England's Baltic sets a whole new bar for showing art in a climate crisis Stepping Softly on the Earth embodies the themes of sustainability and interconnectedness both in its theme and how it has been put together Sponsored by Louisa Buck 6 February 2024 Share Stepping Softly on the Earth brings together work by more than 20 artists from across the world, whom together challenge our human-centred perspective Photo: John McKenzie @ Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art Green is the new black In this monthly column, Louisa Buck looks at how the art world is responding to the environmental and climate crisis...