Sound and Politics. Shaping Current Artistic Practices in Latin America

Lukas Kühne

The presence of Arte Sonoro in Latin America is growing in the alternative art scene as well as in the milieu of academia, where it has been established itself with clear local and regional associations since the beginning of the 2000s. The Latin American Arte Sonoro movement does not necessarily draw from the Western anthology of sound art or Klangkunst; however, it does include the recognizable treatment of sound as material and exemplifies the liberation from traditional musical codes.

Throughout Latin America, a wealth of musical expression immerses inhabitants directly and daily within nourishing soundscapes in public spaces. “To reclaim the streets” at any time is not of minor importance and does not only apply to a minority. Auditory expression in the public spaces of Latin America features a strong call for identity: connecting the creation with its geographic and cultural origins. For example, in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, Candombe is a ubiquitous ritual that offers the irresistible Afro-Montevidean rhythmic-musical practice, which is recognized and socially integrated without antagonism. In fact, urban traffic in the neighborhoods of Montevideo can be interrupted without prior notice at any time of the day – without aid of police or officials – to make room for a Candombe comparsa of approximately 12 to 36 drummers and several dancers. Following this tradition, the conquest of the street can be understood as a socio-political act that has been positively engrained for generations in the self-image and sonorous memory of the Montevideanos.

One essential distinction to western artistic practice is how arte sonoro operates in the Latin American cultural variety as a vehicle, space, and mouthpiece to address socio-political grievances and to stake out positions accordingly. Current political realities also present motivations as well. At the forefront is a massive feministic movement, its presence strongly fueled by the obsoletion of equality claims, unpunished repression, and domestic violence, often ending in fatalities. This social criticism makes itself heard by any and all means to stamp out outdated patriarchal and macho behavior patterns. The impact can be felt in all areas and has initiated a general rethinking of the social structure all over Latin America. An ongoing solid exhibition format, Acciones Sonoras por los Derechos de las Mujeres y Disidencias (Sound Actions for the Rights of Women and Non-Binary People) was developed during the Festival Internacional de Arte Sonoro Monteaudio17-recoleccion in Montevideo.

One of the essential topics is the universal right to access to water. In Chile, for example, the natural water sources are privatized, and citizens are held hostage by the current extreme neo-liberal system. The countrywide protests are receiving overwhelming support in Chilean society and will most likely change the constitution in the near future. That was also the motive for changing the curatorial idea of the 12^th edition of the arte sonoro festival Tsonami in Valparaiso. This changed concept focuses on reflecting upon and investigating the role of arte sonoro in the context of crisis. Artistic processes included observation, tactical actions in the public space, mapping, reflection, exchange, and research processes of the social-territorial context. The neighboring country of Argentina is dealing with continual high levels of inflation; trust in the banks has collapsed, and technical terms such as Dollar blue, Dollar paralelo or Dollar negro have appeared. Mexico continues to battle with energy reform and relies on ideas from the past, ignoring climate crisis challenges and solutions for the future. It is also of great concern that some Latin American countries employ harmful fertilizer and pesticides excessively in the agriculture industry, contaminating more and more drinking water resources. Other South American countries struggle as well. Bolivia is on an uncertain political path due to manifold reasons, including the ethnic division and territorial disputes. Industrialization through outdated development strategies related to the processing of raw materials – such as oil, natural gas and rare earth ores – is yet another burden Bolivia faces. And in Peru’s mining areas, high levels of lead are found in residents’ bloodstreams. Brazil's right-wing president Bolsonaro is under fire for human rights abuses; he abolished the Ministry of Culture, putting the entire state education system in peril. Even more alarming, he has declared nuclear energy (including uranium mining) to be the energy policy priority of his government.

In some ways, the current political landscape of Latin America seems to mirror the condition of the world today. However, the impact achieved by the collective creativity of the pueblo, its communitarian understanding and acting, should never be underestimated. Nevertheless, Latin America does not seem to shy away from complexity or change. Without wanting to idealize, this trait can also be seen to work within arte sonoro's current artistic practices and manifestations. These subjective observations are based on my 15 years of work as an artist, curator and academic at the State University UdelaR (Universidad de la República) in Montevideo with a focus on arte sonoro in Uruguay.

1. Domingo das eleições no Brasil (Sunday of elections in Brazil, 28 October 2018)

Feria de Tristán Narvaja in the context of the Monteaudio18 sound art festival in Montevideo, Uruguay. Video and socio-political performance by Sara Abreu and passersby, including the intervention of a collective installation for cell phones coordinated by Giuliano Obici.

Video by Sara Abreu

2. Acciones Sonoras por los Derechos de las Mujeres y Disidencias (Sound Actions for the Rights of Women and Non-Binary People) 

Sound and visual installation that presents an opportunity to take part in different mobilizations and expressions promoting women’s and non-binary people’s rights. One of the works consists of a collection of sound recordings of marches and demonstrations for women’s and non-binary people’s rights, all sounding simultaneously from different speakers, generating a collective soundscape of struggle and emancipation. The cities presented in this work are Arequipa, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Concepción, Juárez, Lima, Oaxaca, Montevideo, San Pablo and Valparaíso. In this sense, sound becomes a tool of empowerment, of communication of what we denounce, demand, and need, cries of anger, of complaint and of support and taking up of the cause. All those marches sounding at the same time, with their different accents, languages, and sounds are the reflection of a revolution that is gestating, inspiring us to continue and to unite ourselves more and more. Many of the artists who collaborated with the registers of their cities are part of a group of Latin American soundscape artists linked through a social network. 

Video by Lucía Chamorro, Ingrid Palacios, Laura Rodríguez and Elena Solis 

3. Metalazo
   Massive metalazo in the context of social protest since 18 October 2019, in front of the armor-clad building – protected by thick plates of metal – of the company Telefónica, a company widely criticized as abusive in its contracts and services. Plaza de la Dignidad (formerly Plaza Italia), Santiago de Chile, 27 December 2019. 

        Video by Rainer Krause 

4. Elections in Bolivia in 2019 

After the election results, Bolivia was divided. Those who claimed that there was fraud took to the streets. The social groups still supporting Evo Morales also took to the streets.

Video by Shirley Rios Pozada 

5. TIPNIS (Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park)

Bolivia, August 2018: March in defense of the territory. Response to the judges of the Tribunal Internacional por los Derechos de la Naturaleza (International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature). 

Video by Shirley Rios Pozada

6. Banco sonoro (Sound Bench)

Spontaneous performance from the Uruguayan percussionist and sound artist Juanita Fernandez at this participative and permanent public art work. The piece, created by Lukas Kühne, is designed for multiple purposes: as a listening station, interactive metallophone or simply a bench to sit on and soak in the view of the park or get lost in the endless horizon of the Rio de la Plata. Its location is at the Plaza Argentina in Montevideo, Uruguay. 

Video by Maximiliano Clerici

7. Mesa de Dinero (Money Desk) a sound performance by Nicolás Varchausky

In our information society, dominated by digital capitalism and immaterial labor, money flows silently through the virtual world of transnational networks. On the other side of this hygienic landscape – “money doesn’t talk, it swears” – paper money still circulates feverishly in most developing countries, and handling it is dirty and noisy. As inflation constantly increases the need for more “monetary units,” buying and stocking up on foreign currency has become the preferred savings plan for many, stimulating the appearance of businesses that offer currency exchanges at parallel market rates. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, these businesses are known as cuevas (caves) and their employees as arbolitos (small trees). People on the streets offering illegal currency call their exchanges out loud.

Video by Centro Cultural Kirchner CCK

8. Memoria del hierro (Iron Memory)

A transducer system makes a metallic wall resonate so that it becomes a sort of expanded speaker. The surface amplifies the recordings gathered by the artist, which were made using contact microphones placed on the police barricades during the Mexico City protests against the energy reforms of 2013. The sounds recorded and transformed by the artist were the result of the rocks used by the demonstrators to hit the barricades.

Artwork and video by Felix Blume

9. Encuentro Tsonami 2019 | Cacerolazo permanente | by Colective 22 bits

“[…] we urgently consider reconfiguring the festival in order to make sense of its performance under these new circumstances. […] the idea of a holiday has no place […] Instead, we will organize an assembly of sound practices whose objective it is to reflect and investigate the role of art and sound practices within the current context of crisis [practicás sonoras en contextos de crisis]” (Excerpt from the Tsonami program)

Video by Colective 22 bits