SACO9 Now or never

INTERVIEWING A BIRD-HEADED MAN | Iván Ávila Jaewook Lee puts on a latex mask in the shape of a blue jay’s head. In no time at all he is in the new role and to our surprise, responds to the first question with a perfect imitation of birdsong. In the background plays a documentary: Treaty of Rhythm, Color and Birdsong, which shows him and his wife, who plays the flute, in the Arizona desert, along with different interviews with experts who talk about synesthesia, music, color theory and neuroscience from a variety of viewpoints.

The exhibition by this Korean artist is a balanced blend of these different topics, which would be hard to bring together in a different context. The trigger for this exploration are the compositions of French musician Oliver Messianen, created in the early 1970’s in the Utah desert of the United States.

Jaewook is also an erudite speaker, who overflows with enthusiasm when talking about his work and that of the French composer: “He is known for his music and his travels around the world capturing different types of birdsong. He collected them as part of an effort to combine classical music and the sounds of nature.

Messianen had a special ability called synesthesia, which meant that when he heard something, he saw bits of color; he mixed two different senses in his mind. I find it an interesting phenomenon and in this video I try to show his experience of color through the sounds of the desert.”

His original plan in Antofagasta was to connect the sensors of an electroencephalogram to the public, in order to analyze how the brain responded to musical stimulus and the chirps of birds. But the sanitary conditions wouldn’t let him, and he was left wondering about what it would have been like to gather and analyze the reactions from the residents of a place with much less aviary diversity than where he had initially developed his research. “I live and work in Arizona. In Antofagasta there are pigeons and seagulls, but you don’t hear many song birds in the morning, and so although they are both deserts that may look somewhat alike, they are different with regards to the presence or absence of birds.”

The video projection is spread across the entire wall inside of Sala 13, on the second floor of the museum, walls that were repainted according to the precise specifications of the artist, giving the room an uncommon warmth and direct relationship with the shades that predominate in the video, creating an immersive visual experience. The editing produces ruptures in our perception in which a new relation between color and music insinuates itself, an experience that has to do more with feeling than reason.

“There is an attempt to combine various disciplines, and this is not only happening in the field of art, but also in science and other areas, because through the 84