A multi-channel sound installation exploring deformation produced by Roc Jiménez de Cisneros for LABoratorio de Sonido during his residency at LABoral
A large part of Roc Jiménez de Cisneros’s musical output is predicated on the idea of deformation, both as symbolic analogy and as a formal element in the strict sense of the word. This ranges from a perversion of stereotypes and aesthetic canons to the act of deforming sounds and their basic parameters so that they are no longer readily recognisable.
Algo Fluorescente (Something Fluorescent) offers, or one could almost say imposes, a prolonged listening experience in order to be able to appreciate the different phases in the deformation. A pool of all-purpose stand-in sounds, anonymous samples of iconic dance music, is materialised and maintains apparently static, though the more or less recognisable snippets gradually lose their identity until they become other sounds.
Yet, as we have to come to expect in works by Roc Jiménez de Cisneros and EVOL (the duo he forms with the Scottish artist Stephen Sharp), discerning the tipping point of the transformation is not the goal. More importantly, the installation invites one to focus on all the intermediary stages, as well as to adopt to a different set of parameters for the passing of time within the musical experience. Chronaesthesia, the consciousness of subjective time (in other words, not a chronometric measurement but the individual experience of the passing of time, which is different to how time is measured by a clock or a calendar) is both the result of the piece as well as its primary vehicle.
During his residency at LABoral, Roc Jiménez de Cisneros created a kit of mobile wooden types using the laser cutting machine at FabLAB Asturias, the art centre’s digital fabrication laboratory. This mobile typography, which will subsequently be put to use in EVOL’s graphic projects, is part of the installation on view in LABoratorio de Sonido. The visual component is to the fore in the publications by EVOL, a collective which experiments with graphics using new formats and forms of presentation.
