Sonoqualia 2.0

Concha García

Sonoqualia is a project aimed at people with visual impairment, whose main objective is the creation of sound artistic experiences linked to pictorial works housed in museums of the city of Madrid. The name (Sono-qualia) refers to the subjective qualities of the sounds we feel and perceive each one of us, so its intention is far from objective criteria translators of visual material in sound material. Pictorial works are the frames of reference from which the spaces and sound experiences are created. The audio-descriptions offered by museums, understood as descriptive narratives of the elements put in relation in the pictures, are the starting point of the project, conceived as a 5-week workshop in which the participants work in groups, assisted by technicians who facilitate them the access to sound-composition software. Sonoqualia focuses on the construction, enrichment and communication of the mental images of the participants, generated from these descriptive narratives, understood as internal representations shaped from our multimodal experiences, in which all the senses intervene. Various elements are used for this purpose, such as symbolic values and emotional meanings of the sounds daily used in our interpersonal and environmental relationships; the sound imagination, which has the capacity of development, sophistication and complexity; previous sound experiences or "sonorous culture", variable in each participant, but enriched when shared and put together; sound material chosen simply by "as it sounds", i.e. by aesthetic criteria... The result is the creation of sound pieces with a duration around 2 minutes. This project has been the beneficiary of an aid for the artistic creation of the city Council of Madrid 2017 and so far, two editions of it have been made.

7-"Express", R. Rauschenberg, by Pilar Pinilla Alcaraz, Mari Carmen Ballesteros Polo, Paco Francisco Martín López, diana Moreno Sánchez

8-"Express", R. Rauschenberg, by Eduardo Viñales Márquez, Rosa del Carmen Sánchez Rey, Marlis Fernández Muñoz, Angelines Estébanez Yébenes.

5-"Express", R. Rauschenberg, by Paco(Francisco Marín Hernández), Rosa Herranz Ochando, Francisca Rigo Pons.

6-"Express", R. Rauschenberg, by María del Prado Albadea Gallen, Felisa de la Hera Maestro.

3-"Campesino catalán con guitarra", Joan Miro- by Pilar Pinilla Alcaraz, Mari Carmen Ballesteros Polo, Paco Francisco Martín López, Diana Moreno Sánchez

Results

As a result of the workshops, 9 sound pieces were created by the participants.

Sonoqualia 2.0, because of its results and its effects on the participants, has exceeded our expectations and has revealed to us as a necessary project, for several reasons:

For its contribution to the democratization of the use of sound as expressive material between people who are not necessarily involved in the world of art or do not have a specific previous training in this field.
For its contribution to the use of the symbolic thinking as a tool to enrich the experience of art and everyday life: it allows the questioning of cultural stereotypes that affect our perception, and also spreads the practice of free association in everyday life.
For contradicting stereotypes and common assumptions about the distribution and development of creativity. The creative and imaginative capacity was not dependent on age or previous training.
For its contribution to the empowerment of the participants: they claimed that they had discovered a language in which they felt comfortable and strong and for which did not need the vision: a language that they thought could be deployed and multiply its complexity.

Sonoqualia allows to extend, following the words of the participants themselves, the scope of the material of the audio-descriptions, by providing a vision away from the "information" about a picture, which is far from the artistic experience.

Some of the pieces made in the workshops are shown below.

SOUND PIECES

1-"Campesino catalán con guitarra", Joan Miro, by Paco(Francisco Marín Hernández), Rosa Herranz Ochando, Francisca Rigo Pons.

4-"Campesino catalán con guitarra", Joan Miro- by Eduardo Viñales Márquez, Rosa del Carmen Sánchez Rey, Marlis Fernández Muñoz, Angelines Estébanez Yébenes.

2-"Campesino catalán con guitarra", Joan Miro- by María del Prado Albadea Gallen, Felisa de la Hera Maestro.

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