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ORA ET LABORA


Anarcheological Luthery Laboratory

An experimental sound exploration with DIY instruments in relation to the territory and the community of the Ricote Valley (southern Spain).

Anarcheological Luthery is how I call the art of building instruments in the way I do. It is a kind of Experimental Organology (or construction of rare instruments), guided by an archaeological interest, which tries to unearth the hidden memory of a place, and carried out using an anarchic methodology.

For years I have worked on musical composition from a DIY perspective, building my own instruments or sound sculptures with materials reused from the environment, collecting abandoned or everyday objects to use as sound artifacts, manufacturing electronic circuits and using motors or other type of mechanisms that work as sound sources or activators for other elements to produce sound.

I have also built contact, air and electromagnetic microphones to capture the sound of the objects; cables to make the sound travel and even little mixing consoles and speakers. A construction process that covers the entire sound chain, from wave generation to listening.

LINKS

>> Anarcheological Luthery Catalog
>> Performance at Pin Pan Pun Festival with Carlos Suárez

Artistic process

Ora et Labora arises from a process that investigates the hidden symbologies in sound creation. An investigation that revolves around issues of ethnomusicology, anthropology, psychology and art.

The artistic laboratory, as an analogy to the alchemical laboratory, is a space where the artist approaches meditative states of transformation through practice and research. Listening is accentuated allowing one to delve into psychic processes, where the unconscious works by storing conscious information and adding a layer of symbolic meaning similar to that of dreams. The materials and objects used in the laboratory for the construction of instruments have great importance on this symbolic narrative and also on the sound itself and the symbolic level that it acquires in the process. All this matter has a history and speaks of the territory to which it belongs. The memory hidden in objects and materials is transmitted to the viewer through sound.

Territory and Community

This work emerges from the sound experience in the territory and the community of Valle de Ricote, an oasis in the middle of a desert, trying to bring the sounds and images of nature, the town and its inhabitants to music through materials and field recordings.

The sound of this piece is especially influenced by architecture. In this place, the old buildings were made mainly of wood, stone and iron used in a rather peculiar way. These materials have been the basis for the construction of the instruments mentioned above.

In this place, there is an intense memory of Arab culture with influences from Sufi poetics since it was a land of experimentation for mystical characters such as Ibn Arabi. The music is impregnated with these influences through musical scales and voices of the landscape that permeate the composition.

Sound

The aesthetic of the sound i create with this instruments oscillates between music and sound art, between folklore and club culture. The way i approach to composition is based on an open score that travels from the rawest and most acoustic sounds produced by vast materials, to the electric noise generated by electro-sound machines.

A background of dark environments created by old pieces of iron on polyphonic drones; the landscape is present through field recordings in nature or in urban areas, accompanied by earthy rhythms of deconstructed flamenco and string melodies reminiscent of Sufi scales. Some concepts appear through processed voices that transport to a mystical universe, conjuring old mythical figures such as Hildegard Von Bingen, Austin Osman Spare or García Lorca.

A trip through sound to find the non-verbal state of mind. Transmuted sounds of the real. Psico-stimulant matter altering the way of listening, blurring the limit between dream and wakefulness, between freedom and madness, between what is normally accepted and what is freely lived.

Motivations

_Investigate the relational possibilities of music as a universal language.
_Develop awareness of acoustic ecology and respect for the sound environment.
_Value DIY and a DIWO philosophy.
_Develop active, creative and critical listening.
_Explore sound as a tool to generate knowledge and stimulate imagination.

References

This research is inspired by movements such as Technoshamanism, the Hacke Filosophy and Trance. The sound set created with these instruments is reminiscent of musical references as diverse as Muslim Gauze, Eliane Radigue or Rabih Beaini.