Argot revisited (1991-2021) by Concha Jerez und José Iges

The original work, made in 1991 and produced by Kunstradio, was a site specific work raised as interference and transgression of two powerful media: the MUSEUM OF ART – media in exercise in relation to the dissemination of Art – and RADIO – another powerful media of our time-.

Basically the work defined a narrative space integrated by the walk of a text in four languages spread through 26 radio receivers placed on the corresponding musical stands with mirrors and fragments of the German text in the former Ballroom of the Museum building. This text continuously suffered a process of transformation in time and measurement of that transformation. The text is self-referential. It’s a speech on the work of Art and its assessment beyond the idea that had generated it and of the artist who created it. 

In these thirty years, the project has been going across mediums and contexts as diverse as radio, video, a museum and a center of art. On each occasion, the words were installed on different supports. Using the new sound materials created in 2008 and mixing them with the original track in four languages (German, English, French and Spanish) of the original work and some parts of the radio performance made in 1991, we make this Argot revisited in which all sound strata of the works are finally joined. So the work started and finishes in Kunstadio, after a long thirty years journey around the World.

With: Heidi Grundmann (Deutsch) / Rosa Fischli (Französisch) / Terry Bourgoigne (Englisch) / Rafael Taibo (Spanisch).

IMMOBiLE JOURNEY (März – Juni 2020) by José Iges

This sound work was born in a particularly difficult period: that of the pandemic caused by the so-called COVID-19 and its almost planetary consequences. It arises in the author's forced confinement in those days, but in contrast to that situation, he articulates a journey through atmospheres of places as distant from each other as Antwerp, Barcelona, ​​Berlin, Bogotá, Mexico City, Graz, Guanajuato, Madrid, Las Palmas, Paris, Seville, Shanghai or Turin. Hence its title: Immobile Journey.

The piece arises in a time in which we simultaneously experienced a global problem and were witness of the reactions that this caused in the networks, to which we contributed with our own response. The author has collected some of the sound realities back and forth that adjective this singular time, in a story for the ear, in a composition that is almost like a portrait or collective soundscape, made from the aesthetic approaches of an acoustic art for radio. It is a hybrid form that is nourished by practices such as action, soundscape or reporting, creating an acoustic space that joins differences and confronts similarities.

Throughout this journey of fifteen minutes and forty seconds, our ears enter in crowded markets, move on streetcars in different cities, hear the tolling of bells, or are assaulted by the ringing of mobile phones that no one picks up. We also go through quiet silences or serious noises, we are aggressed by police surveillance in the streets, we enter in the environment of an ICU, we are witness of the applause from citizens to health services, we are stunned the noise of the subway.

The short texts read by virtual announcers were published on Facebook during this period: some contributions are critical reflections and others have certain ironic distance. Technically, the mixing, assembly and electronic transformations of some materials have been used.

Recordings made by the author in different places and times have been used, in addition to sounds downloaded from the internet, original music performed with a score editor and short sound sequences contributed by dear colleagues in sound art - who have sent them by email, WhatsApp or WeTransfer during those days-: Luis Barrie, Rubén Barroso, José Manuel Berenguer, Rilo Chmielorz, Jorge Gómez, Emiliano López Rascón and Ward Weis. The percussionist has been Pilar Subirà. Most of these sequences were collected during the days of confinement.

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