Acoustic Fossil
Santiago Reyes Villaveces y Daniel Villegas Vélez
Recipient project of the open call Túnel de Escape 2022 Ministerio de Cultura
24 de November 2022—23 February 2023
Baluarte de Santa Catalina, Cartagena de Indias
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“Fósil acústico” is a sound installation by artist Santiago Reyes Villaveces and musicologist-philosopher Daniel Villegas Vélez, winners of the Túnel de Escape 2022 open call. The installation transforms the exhibition space in the interior of the walls of Cartagena into a resonance chamber—an immersive, acoustic environment—that resembles the interior of the human ear, opening reflections around listening and resonance as means for rethinking our collective relation to our surroundings and the environment.
The site of the Baluarte de Santa Catalina and the flooded floors of the Aljibe (the system of cisterns that supplied colonial Cartagena with fresh water) recall, in a dramatic way, the connection between coloniality and the contemporary climate crisis: the anthropocene—the current era where human action produces global transformations at a geological level—began with the Spanish invasion, whose exploitation of the American continent served as the primary fuel for the development of industrial capitalism. According to current estimates, the sea-level in the Bay of Cartagena will rise more than one meter within the next one hundred years as a result of global warming, flooding not only the exhibition space but also vulnerable places such as La Boquilla and its surrounding mangroves. Thus, the Caribbean goes from being a region of colonial exploitation to one of the first victims of the global transformations that have resulted from the expansion of extractivist capitalism.
The central piece in the installation is a sculpture of the inner ear, which is responsible for our senses of balance, spatial orientation, and listening. Through a system of loudspeakers, the sculpture emits a drone composed of synthesized sounds, sounds of native species and field recordings from Cartagena, Ciénaga de Juan Polo, La Boquilla (taken from the section “territorios de la escucha” from the Testimonial Volume of the Truth Commission Final Report) and from the Humboldt Institute’s Collection of Environmental Sounds (CSA). If—as is likely—these ecosystems were to disappear, such recordings will have become the acoustic fossils after which the installation is named.
At the same time, the sculpture is an interactive touch interface, so that visitors are able to modify the sonorous characteristics of the environment in real time. Through this interaction, new resonances, noises and silences are unpredictably produced thanks to aleatoric functions and mathematical models similar to those employed to analyze the behavior of chaotic thermodynamic systems such as the atmosphere itself.
“Fósil acústico” seeks to produce reflections with respect to the threats, challenges, responsibilities, and possibilities of life in the Caribbean facing climate change from the perspective of environmental consciousness and emphasizing immersive and meditative modes of listening. How can we conceive our place in a world where the uncertainty of our actions coexists with the inevitability of their effects? How can we rethink our relation to an environment in which we are not merely external actors but also involved recipients of our actions? What does it mean to live in a world out of balance?
Special thanks
Andrés Ramírez, Comisión de la Verdad, Sebastián Pérez, Eliana Barona, Beatriz Salgado, Hoover Pantoja, Ángela Mendoza, Arriberos E.A.T, Alejandro Valiente, Familia Villegas Vélez, Familia Reyes Villaveces, Rodrigo Alfaro, María Victoria Vélez, Giancarlo Romero, Jen Reimer, Sandeep Bhagwati, Arteico 3D, Conrado Trujillo Morales, Familia Veléz Arevalo, Ricardo Villaveces, Gwynne Fulton, Julia Roldán, Carlos Acuña, Colombo Americano Manizales, Festival de la Imagen de Manizales.
With support from:
Ministerio de Cultura Colombia
Fortificaciones de Cartagena
Escuela Taller de Cartagena
Instituto Humboldt
Sponsored by:
Coffee Amor Perfecto
4Dlab
