The possibility of recording sound and reproducing it entails, from the beginning, the need for physical mediums: shellac cylinders, stone or vinyl discs, and magnetic tape. Their recording and their subsequent reproduction involve friction on the material they are made of: it follows and traces an irregular groove containing information, and confers a physical identity to the ephemeral temporality of the music. They materialize what at first glance seems immaterial - ideals, feelings, thoughts and emotions - and capture their abstraction by assigning a tangible form of the medium to the sound waves. Perhaps if the vinyl record and magnetic tapes have survived in this digital age, in which we are immersed, it is because they offer another layer to the listening experience. Listening is therefore a tactile experience: we also listen with our hands.
LISTENING WITH YOUR HANDS: Obsolete Media, Ephemeral Messages, reflects on the fragility, durability and capabilities of analog media, how these have determined listening, memories and imaginaries, individual or collective, as well as the way we relate to sound , either as listeners or as creators.
L’exposició es basteix amb el diàleg decidit entre tres àmbits d’acció. El primer contextualitza les problemàtiques dels suports i el seu impacte històric i conceptual. Els usos artístics i subversius dels formats, dins les manifestacions artístiques i sonores de la segona meitat del s. XX ençà, són presentats al segon àmbit. El tercer, gràcies a una selecció d’objectes i documents, desvela tres obres musicals –I Am Sitting in a Room (Alvin Lucier, 1970), Vinyl Coda (Philip Jeck, 1999-2003) i The Disintegration Loops (William Basinski, 2002-2003)–, plantejades com a relectures i reinterpretacions de les qualitats efímeres, finites i materials dels suports analògics.
What is recorded, what is saved, what is lost, what is forgotten, what is recorded again and also what new opportunities are generated? What is archive and what is amnesia? How do we deal with "memory loss", a collateral effect of the cyclical processes that these technologies give rise to? How do we manage, interpret and store these obsolete modern archaeological remains, manufactured in a post-industrial capitalist context where technical reproducibility continues to produce, prescribe, recycle and pile up an immeasurable volume of analogue junk and digital waste?
Curated by Ferran Fages, the exhibition proposes a journey through the blurred and permeable contours that analog formats hide and reveal.
Visitors to the exhibition can also enjoy a complementary activity, listening to the full versions of works by the featured artists Alvin Lucier, Philip Jeck and William Basinski. For further information, click here..
«Memory is no longer conceived as the need to retain the past to prepare the future, but it manufactures the futures and the pasts it need.s»
JOAN FONTCUBERTA, Revelacions. Dos assaigs sobre fotografia (2019)
Curator
Ferran Fages
Idea
Jordi Alomar
Curatorship assistant
Mariona Villanueva
In collaboration with
Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya, Centre de Documentació de l’Orfeó Català, Museu de Badalona, Museu del Joguet de Catalunya, Museu Nacional de la Ciència i la Tècnica de Catalunya, Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya
Exhibition Design
Emiliana Design
A Museu de la Música de Barcelona – Centre Robert Gerhard production
