The Apparent Silences of Tinguely’s Aquatic Machines 60:00 min Performance, 2018

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The Automatons Jean Tinguely

FountainBasel, Switzerland

Photo: Julian Salinas

Emilia Álv

arez (b.1985) Artista Visual and multidisciplinary Argentinian artist. 

CREDITS

Performance by Emilia Álvarez

Camera by Julian Salinas

Video and sound editing by Emilia Álvarez

With the support of URRA – Atelier Mondial Switzerland

(Edition 1/4) 1st Visual Arts Acquisition Prize, Espacio Finnegans (1st Edition)

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ABOUT

During the action I enter into the Fountain wearing a waterproof suit, a radio signal system incorporated inside the suit and a Hydrophone (microphone for water), which allows sending and playing live and raw audio signal with the sounds produced under the water of the Fountain, generated by the mechanisms in operation of the kinetic sculptures in the density of the water. The signal was received by wireless headphones that I had delivered to the audience outside the fountain, seeking to explore a new perception in how to perceive, experience and contemplate the apparent environment.

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Conceptually I seek to generate a visceral decentralised experience of a body, connected in a network that exceeds the physical field. Taking the environment and the public space as an animal-technological body, composed of organs that can be linked to each other through listening practice and sound. For that with the movements of my body and my translation inside the fountain I seek to enter into communication with the sculpture-machines in an attempt to listen to their internal voices, with the idea of becoming one more kinetic sculpture within the Fountain and the landscape and produce a continuous communication network inside and outside.

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In the technical aspect of this project, I took the Fountain as a water stage and each machine sculpture as a musical instrument. Each sculpture has a motor and a movement that produces a particular sound pattern under the water, as if one was the kick, another the drum, another the hit hat and so on. Giving a sonorous expression of the techno and noise genre with voices in its most abstract expression.

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