DOUBLE RECORD
PLAYING ARCHITECTURE Fernando Portal
The integration of architectural knowledge into other fields of action has opened a series of possibilities for the design and research of spatial manifestations that go beyond what is built. Within this ensemble of various non-excluding spaces we can
think and feel that Cartesian and symbolic spaces, -perhaps the most proper spaces of the architectural discipline in historical terms- coexist and are complementary with social, environmental, ecological, political and technological spaces. Between the countless nuances that emerge from these multiple intersections, the temporary environment defined by sound manifestations emerges as a space where to project actions that –ranging for the artistic to the political- allow building and strengthening of social space.
DOUBLE RECORD This disciplinary vision -that brings architecture and design closer to the field of sound- is explored by the experience contained in this double record. Records that confront a series of sound experiments developed by different interdisciplinary teams, with a later conversation held between them. The sound record of both compositions and conversations gives account of a practical and reflexive action of architectural though with other fields of research and creation.
IMPROVISING AND COMPOSING The recorded sounds and dialogues present us with spaces for interdisciplinary action in which different kinds of issues and tools meet, allowing the development of new projects and enriching the set of instruments proper to each one of the disciplines involved. Thus, transposing fields of knowledge allow to transfer the creative methodologies that converge, identifying new equalizations among composition and improvisation in music, architecture, art and poetry.
José Luis “Cole” Abásolo: [JA] Juan Pablo Corvalán: [JP] Álvaro Daguer: [AD] Mathias Klenner: [MK]
CONVERSATION
José Luis “Cole” Abásolo: [JA] Juan Pablo Corvalán: [JP] Álvaro Daguer: [AD] Mathias Klenner: [MK]
[AD]: I would like to start by asking if you as musicians feel there is a correlation between the music you develop and architecture, and in what part of the composition chain you find that similarity. [JP]: It is attractive that you place us under the musicians category; I would not dare to such heights yet. Effectively, we entered into this category due to an issue more related to architecture than to music. This inquisitiveness is given, on one hand, by how to manifest oneself in space -and here
sound becomes instrumentaland on the other, by how to insert space-related issues into music or sound. These references come and go, and I believe that is sort of what brings us together, being part of a Faculty of Architecture, Design and Building, but sharing this multidisciplinary curiosity, where our disciplinary origins are put at the service of another intellectual interests that we have. So it goes both ways. A conceptual side, were we could even arrive at a political message, and a more practical one, pragmatic even,
of looking at relations within a structure that may be musical, as well as architectural. It is an exploration and is still open. At least, I would not venture myself into a closed definition. [MK]: The idea of composing shares many terms between music and architecture and probably other forms of art as well. When I speak of height, harmony, symmetry, asymmetry, one could say there is a similar language. There is a correlative language. And that, as Juan Pablo just said, can be understood from different
points of view. As when you see trends in the art world related to music, architecture, painting or other arts, like during the Baroque period for example, in which there is a compositional relation: A relation between the social and spatial context in which an elite society enclosed in a way of thinking, in a certain philosophy that transfers compositional canons to architecture and music. And that is something very specific of that time, in which that type of social context was possible. Today something like that it is much more difficult since the
context is more diverse, and where globalization endend up blending millions of trends into each other. So we can no longer identify moments in art history in which you can establish a straight line between architecture, music and paining, for example. But the idea that there may be correlations on a compositional level is maintained. One could understand there is a correlation, basically on the abstract thought level. I do not know if I can throw this at this point on the conversation, but I believe all of us are going to
talk about Iannis Xenakis, an exemplary case study who was an engineer, an architect, a musician, a mathematician‌ [JP]: He was classified as an utopist architect. [MK]: An utopist architect. [JP]: Which is a very good term for current times. References relate to each other in an odd way when stating the link between architecture and music, or between sound and space. Because, even if there are other lines between the
discipline of architecture and music that are quite clear –like the rather pictorial line explored by Theo van Doesburg and Mondrian through De Stijl during modernity, that you learn about on freshmen year; at the end, everything has to do with how characters such as Xenakis are actually taught. He is taught as an apostrophe somewhere, being that he is of a fundamental relevance. Xenakis even had to resort to not yet existing technologies when composing a piece of music. There were young computation students who work on the
light sequences of installations such as the ÂŤpolytopesÂť, that gave way to later technological developments on electronic music. He was a visionary. I can quote others of course, but it was odd for me not to study him more in depth. Thus the question of why my architecture education did not include him? or at least why we did not had access to that line? Besides staying in the library fifteen minutes longer to find that book and to discover such and striking source. Even more striking than the ones taught as a general background at the time.
[AD]: Where do you gather the sounds you developed in these recordings? JP, on your part with Urbanistas Planetarios, that mixes electronica perhaps, with some flavours of Cabaret Voltaire and Electrodomésticos… Or is there a predisposition to develop sounds, in your case, Mathias with Dúo Trópico or José with Sonora Guantánamo? Is there a predisposition to say, “You know, I am going to focus my music in this line of sound research”, or is it a rather spontaneous manifestation as
you play the instruments? How do you get to say, “...this is a musical moment we want to reproduce and express?” [JP]: In my case with Urbanistas Planetarios I believe I have been influenced by the ones sitting on this table. The first work approach towards this idea of precisely allude to Xenakis was with José Luis, with Zoomthors. This name was a pun, mixing Peter Zumthor -an emblematic architect- and the word “Zoom”. It was one of the first sound installations we made. After which, we
founded Urbanistas Planetarios, extracting a concept from urban theory, and developing some first experiments with Mathias. Later, journalist Magdalena Atria joined, as well as architect Julio Suรกrez. They shared different, more experimental input and ambitions. The funny thing is that the more we have changed,the more we resort so the early, we resort to the early influences you mentioned, because they ptovide a common ground for us to communicate. And there was also a strong decision regarding the reproduction of
certain samples or continuous basic tracks. Geting closer to something like a song, which was not part of our original approach. And that is how it was for that case. We are not interested on the chorus or in songs structured by verse, but we are interested in the message, something that Macarena contributed to. So, I believe there are a lot of different influences.
[AD]: So, referencing bands that were already developing similar sounds is almost a chance event. [JP]: There are songs where that is explicit –or at least that we thought were explicit but no one caught it- as in “Yo también lo quería”, were we developed a female version of the Electrodomésticos song “Yo la quería”. And that was given by the text. There was a predetermined base, but the text had a very strong influence, something that was not present in earlier projects. So there definitely was an articulation
between text and sound, in a loose and experimental way. In other cases there is no text, so that relation is still to be built. There is also an influence by other artists we have seen together, such as Martin Gubbins as well as what we have seen of your work, Alvaro, with Dimensión 11 and A Full Cosmic Sound. It has been quite nourishing. [JA]: I think… and answering to your first question… I want to distance myself completely from any idea associated to making music. Because from
my point of view –and this is something very personal– it feels like a disrespectful thing to do. I have no musical education except for the one I received at high school. So, alluding to references, there is a scene related to do sound poetry in Chile today. And for a long time I have been arguing in favor of the idea that poetry in Chile has probably been quite an outstanding art, and I believe it is contemporary sound poets who lead that avant-garde today, in the same way that Huidobro or Enrique Lihn once did… And this is the scene that
has allowed me and several others here to foresee a creative process more associated to sound than to music. This is where Martin Gubbins emerges, as well as Felipe Cussen, and Carlos Soto, my partner in Sonora Guantånamo who taking a distance from machines, develops a work more distinctly associated with poetry. And to me he is a reference because I have a hard time approaching poetry but when I approach it through sound, it gets to me‌ it is like a different energy. So maybe these are the topics
more relevant to the projects I have been part of. [AD]: OK, but many of the artists we can refer to, started off from the premise that they were not musicians, or that they were self-taught musicians. In a way what we are doing now musically, is something that has already been explored. And surely, if we had not heard it, or if we had not known these references existed, we would never have gotten to express the sounds we recorded in this studio.
[MK]: Of course! I understand there are local as well as international references, and I agree with Cole in terms that pretending to call yourself a musician is absurd. I mean I do not believe that is what we are. But we do come from a milieu of people who experiments with music and sound... [JP]: …and space. [MK]: It is like, for example… I don’t know. In architecture, one goes on to study and you end up with a degree and think of yourself as an architect. But
in general, in the majority of artistic disciplines, you study arts but you do not proclaim yourself an artist until you have developed a consistent body of work. [AD]: And in that sense: What happens with craftsmen? Why is craftman able to define him or herself as one? [MK]: Yes, but only after he or she has had a body of work developed through the years. You have to gain some craftsmanship. Everything is related to craft. To resume
the idea, I believe there are important moments in music history, such as when field recordings and sound records enter the scene, allowing for trained musicians such as Pierre Schaefer in France to emerge, and to takes pieces of tape, cut them up and assemble them in a composition that he calls a musical composition. And he sheds light on it and says “this is music�. And if you listen to it, it is made solely of locomotive sounds. That is Pierre Schaffer’s first emblematic concrete music recording. That marks a change in music history and creates
a crack for people who were not musicians to easily mix sounds and create works based on that. Schaefer came from a compositional background and he certainly writes a score in order to do what he does. Many people later saw themselves in that freedom to do that. I believe that is interesting. After that, many people felt free to do the same. As the concept of what constitutes music became mixed with that of sound, and sounds enters the kingdom of music, it creates a whole field of work right there. For me, for example, on
a compositional level with Dúo Trópico, many of the works we made, have to do with a material experimentation, with taking different types of sounds, textures‌ as one would do while thinking in an architectural work on a more spatial level. You begin to work with materials; you link them and see what happens to that amalgam. [JA]: Like a collage? [MK]: In the end that possibility of the collage emerges. And I believe that
is an equally interesting musical moment. With Dúo Trópico we have another work called “Endogamia” (Endogamy), made at the Contemporary Art Museum in Santiago (MAC). There we experimented something different, taking environmental sounds and reproducing them until feedback is generated. Feedback. The idea is that you can reproduce environmental sound itself until you make it grow to a point where that same sound generates a character in space. A character that ends up making that same
space vibrate. That was an experiment directly linked to understanding if you could build a musical composition with the sound of the space itself. [JA]: Your comment is very related to a conversation I had with Toto à lvarez, the ex guitar player in the first incarnation of La Floripondio. He contemptuously refers to a certain psychedelic scene in Santiago, as cuicodelia (a pun translatable as posh-delic) [AD]: We came up with that name‌
[JA]: But well, that is interesting… So he tells me: -No… those guys are just melomaniacs making music. And I said: -Alright... This is the same discussion that we have in architecture, probably, but taken to music. And what is behind all of this?. Toto has a project named Ñaca Ñaca which is fully improvisational, but grounded in music. The issue is how we interpret non-musicians: How us as non-musicians understand something, and how musicians understand that same thing. I understand what Mathias says
and I agree, but I believe there is a difference in how each subject interprets something, anyway. When you have the theoretical musical tools you can understand and create on other levels. [AD]: Yes, but what I realize is also that in this tape, there is more music than nonmusic. There are more sound spaces and harmonies than deconstruction. And this is delivered by people who are declaring themselves as non-musicians. So there is a disparity here‌
[JP]: Between discourse and… [AD]: Right, regarding discourse, because I would expect that… [JA]: We would seek to do something else, clearly. [AD]: I would expect a nonmusician to play in an almost random manner. And I do not perceive that on our side at least. On the other hand, Toto Álvarez, I do not think he is developing something intuitive or random, because in order to improvise, whether you like it or not, you need to move within
some parameters of musical notes. Even with the most minimal knowledge you know you can move around in C, D or E. You take this basic notions. So I do not believe Toto à lvarez goes on stage and goes crazy –boom, boom, boom- and composes a piece. Because if he does not takes this minimal things in to account, it just does not work, anything works. So, maybe it is about us getting together and jamming, and everyone can play what they wish, but I bet you will be bored after the first minute, because there is not going to be a
harmony, there is not going to be a common factor. [MK]: I believe it is interesting what happens with characters such as John Cage, who begins experimenting with ways of composing and starts to, for example, use the I Ching as a mathematical method to make his compositions‌ as well as other ways, like using a stopwatch, or describing all of the actions in a space. He also began to mix sounds and actions. Actions as in performance, as something more related to theater.
Taking that into our world of composition… in architecture, planimetry, drawing, would be synonymous with the musical stave. John Cage can be praised or criticized but nobody is going to deny that he was a musician. Perhaps some people may question this –everything is questionable– but the guy was a musician. His thing was experimenting with other ways of composing, precisely. And this also happens in architecture. Perhaps it is harder to see, but I don’t know… There is the direct case, I return to Iannis
Xenakis, who takes the score for “Metastasis”, made using a randomized mathematical formula of a certain proportion, which is later transposed by Le Corbusier for this facade for … [JA]: …the Philips Pavilion. [MK]: No, La Tourette, where he picks up on a composition and makes a transposition. There, in the end, there is a construction plane, but Xenakis’ drawings were initially mathematical formulas.
[JP]: Which were combined with Le Corbusier’s “golden section”, his “Modulor”. And in effect, the division of windows and proportions of La Tourette have that geometrical composition. [AD]: I also see that there is much relativism as far as composition goes. Because there are musicians for example, I have the case of a friend, Mauricio Dodds, who is not a musician, but for me he is an excellent instrumental player. And he is so good it is hard for him to deconstruct. It is too hard for him to be minimal,
to play two notes, because his skills‌ [JP]: Betray him. [AD]: Betray him, yes. So, I started playing ten years ago, I was already a grown up and I started playing music, I played two notes. And he told me that he would love to play what I do sometime because it’s very basic and minimal and it sounds good. So that is why everything is relative in the end. To categorize you as a musician or nonmusician or as an architect is, in the end, given by a certification, a
diploma. Somebody else tells you: You know what… [JP]: Recognition. [AD]: …you are a musician, you are an architect. But there have been people who did not need a diploma. They did not need someone to tell them: “-You are an architect, you are a musician, you are a doctor”… but the environment imposed that; it told you: “-You are”. [JP]: As it happens, Xenakis and Le Corbusier did not have a diploma. In effect and in order
to transcend the discussion on defining oneself, I believe there is a common ground that brings us together. I believe there is a posh-delic.… was it? [AD]: Posh-delic. [JP]: Yes, that’s right. Poshdelic. So, there is a posh-torture as well... Posh-torture…, no that did not come out well…there is a posh-tecture, which we have also been escaping from as architects. To this trap the discipline has fallen in, only building housing for the upper class. But on the contrary, we have interests,
which relate to the spatial and social repercussions of the built environment, and we want to take part on it and express ourselves. I believe it is from here that we have different ways of tackle this. And that’s how we arrive to specific tools. The tools, the technology available to us today, ranging from this recording studio to the various instruments, track editing, sampling, etc., these allow us to arrive at an outcome; and at a kind of sensibility or a basic knowledge of musical aspects. As far as the technical goes, I would say that we always play the same base note. We have an inside joke
with Urbanistas Planetarios about ourselves being a ZZ Top cover band gone wrong. [AD]: ‌the worldwide record of the single note. [MK]: So maybe, starting at that point, we can go back to answer the initial question. There really is a correlation between musical and architectural composition, because for example: if you want to develop a minimalist work, you could do so in architecture as well. In these recordings there is a lot of that minimalism, of developing few
notes, almost tribal sounds. Do you also feel this originates in genes? As in our Chilean genes, in our Mapuche background? Because it is startling that out of all of the recordings probably an 85% consists in monochord electronic compositions. [MK]: Or pentatonic ones. [AD]: So‌ that brings some ideas, it may not be the case but Violeta Parra‌ her music was really one note all the time: tun, tun‌ and if we correlate that with Krautrock, it is also one note. Everything is one
note, one note, one note. And there we enter other issues, other factors. I read an article on Leo Fender, who was not a musician either and the California sound, a sound you may also find in the Pacific coast, in Peru. Sounds which later, if you cross over to the other side, in Thailand, Asia, they have quite a Hawaiian sound. [JP]: Of a higher pitch. [MK]: That opens another vantage point, one that asks for a correlation between territory or social space and musical
trends. That it is also an issue we are interested in, even if it does not directly relates to the composition on this tape. Perhaps it could be something related to what you say, but it is something that nowadays it is quite difficult to read, but there is a relation between territory –the kind of space you inhabit– and the type of music that emerges. That reminds me of an article‌. I do not remember the name of the architect who wrote it, but it said that North American architect Robert Moses, and the development of social housing projects for
African American communities, built the foundations of hip hop. Due to the extreme overcrowded housing projects they built in the U.S. at the time, hip hop incorporated a critique associated to those high friction spaces, in which everyone was crowded together as well as segregated. [JP]: And that combined with African American culture. I mean, hip hop is the preacher, the message, it is almost like a mantra in which the discourse takes on an outstanding predominance, as opposed
to what was the earlier Jazz experimentation, which was almost instrumental. [AD]: Because if you think about it‌ electronic music originated in Detroit, it is very different from electronic music generated in Berlin, for example. [MK]: ‌or Chicago’s House. [AD]: Right, they are different. There is a common factor, but I also believe it happens because different cultures are able to produce different sounds. And I
believe that for us, as Chileans, that monochord thing on this record is comes as something quite natural. [JP]: And something that it is also linked to the rhythmic, as Cole said, of a certain poetic structure. It may be more a combination of factors, that a mere racial or cultural thing. If we performed a DNA test to all those we have mentioned, we will find some patterns, but circumstances play a role. If you are in California, your space is going to be the garage, the backyard, and the
desire to transcend. If you are in Detroit it is going to be abandoned buildings. And this happens everywhere. And we cannot forget Krautrock in postwar Germany. People had to completely reassess their culture and “start from scratch� because they did not want to assimilate a foreign culture either. Thus I believe we also are influenced by the social and political context we experience. I believe the explorations we have been able to perform respond to that, and it is something that is combined with these affinities
you mentioned and that we still have not had the chance to look at them from a distance and analyzing it more carefully. [JA]: We have talked about this relation between project and territory, but there is also an important aspect. We live in a time in which there are a series of technologies available. [AD]: ‌and simulators. [JA]: Which come in multiple versions and it allows us to do what for others was almost impossible. So that is a factor,
which added to the previous ones can render some new relations. But if you ear the music Mathias was just talking about, or Juan Pablo, it is probably a kind of music that began with the Roland. [JP]: TR-8 [JA]: TR-8, of course, together with the TR 808. So, new and smaller versions continue to being made and each time people have more access to them... so they begin to be associated with new music, such as Trap. So there is a
technological factor and there is also an accessibility factor. You are your own studio from your computer; you are a whole orchestra. [AD]: Exactly, because even to develop what I do, in a previous moment in time, I would have needed a synthesizer this big. [JP]: The size of the room. [AD]: Exactly. [JP]: For me there is an instantly complementary answer, which is present in
everyone here. Dealing with reverse engineering. Mathias builds his instruments. He has even worked with students in order to elaborate various instruments, and also incorporating sensors. Cole plays percussion on objects that, thanks to the record and combination capacity of the technology you mention, he can later put together as a whole. You [AD] also use elements, almost technologically obsolete –like old keyboards you can find at flee markets– and you incorporate them into a track using your computer.
So resuming what you said, these is about technological possibilities and accessibility. But at the same time there is this a need for combining these technologies with analog or obsolete elements, in order to get to the space/sounds we are interested in exploring. So this is a debate that can be fruitfull for the subjects you mentioned at the beginning. [MK]: There is an initial questioning in my opinion, which is thinking about the possibility of composing with sound at a Faculty of
Architecture, Design and Building. Not to say musically, because that seems even more difficult to me. But at least a possibility of working with sound. For me that is a fundamental question in this conversation. And I do not know if these questions have a clear answer, but I do believe we have certain perceptions on where it is headed… [JP]: There is a concurrence of quite interesting circumstances. Because on the one hand before the actions developed by the Faculty, Álvaro –who also works
at the university– had already extended a series of invitations to certain actors within the musical scene, to express themselves in the campus yard, as an appropriation. [AD]: ‌as a civic act. [JP]: Of course, as a civic act in the campus inner square. A place where if there is reggaeton playing and hot dogs for sale, there is no problem. But if these other manifestations use that space, someone can comes out and say “That is noisy, please, turn
that down.” And on the other hand there is the precedent of the work developed by Mathias through «Desfase» a cycle of musical explorations that settle the foundations for «Soundtiago – Sound Body Space Festival». So these is an inquisitiveness installed. So there are the circumstances of the people converging here, the context we spoke about before, and at the same time the possibility of having an institutional space that has allowed us to experiment. Including pedagogical experimentation,
where students also participate, as opposed to what we experienced during our own studies. So, the question remains open. But at the same time we can verify the first concrete steps: first there was this, then that‌ And eventually we could even risk saying: there are some incipient results. Including a critical reading of how transcending this is, and how much of a space it is. As we said, how much music it is. [MK]: Yes, because for me it is interesting if there is a critique behind all of this. Which is not for
me to say, anyone can do it. And it is about the possibility of a link between an architecture school and the idea of working with sound. Not with acoustic design per se. I have talked with many architects who really defend the opinion that, no, that sound it is not a field for architecture to work with. That you are diverging towards sound studies. Perhaps this is a broader discussion because it takes you to question how to limit disciplinary fields. [JP]: Absolutely.
[MK]: And to ask where you can trespass those disciplinary fields. For me, Iannis Xenakis and Bernhard Leitner -another architect working with soundhave explored that possible place. And not from acoustic design per se. [AD]: But Xenakis’ expression, for example. Is it born out of him thinking as an architect? As a person who is distanced from architecture and wants to develop sounds, or do you think they are totally parallel positions?
[JP]: It is intentional and he strongly declares so. It is the prelude to questioning disciplines and I believe that all the examples we have provided coincide in terms of them being people who do not have a traditional academic education. Most of them have overcome these obstacles and have done so rigorously because they have left a legacy you can read back, and we have integrated them into the academy. But this is recent. Why does that curiosity reemerges? Why do things evolve like this? Why do we lack clear definitions? These are valid
questions. So, why it is coherent to organize the ÂŤSoundtiagoÂť festival?. Because it links with a previous cycle during which we asked these questions and in which there were guests. And there is also an antithesis. There are people who participate of interesting projects who have said: I work in architecture, in this schedule and I work with sound, or music in this other schedule. And you can even recognize if this person has received spatial training. It can be due to influences. Pink Floyd, Roger Waters and all of them where architects at first
and they made architectural diagrams –Gilmore said- in order to organize their first experiments. [JA]: About that, I believe the word diagram speaks of something rather interesting because there are musicians who have reformulated the notation system. Diagrams that in a way require a new notation system in order to represent those new sounds, to try out those new crossings. There is also that notion. I was thinking that, historically, the discipline most associated to architecture
is art. That an architect cannot work in architecture, if he/she does not know about art and the history of the twentieth century. What unites us is that there is a curiosity about something. We do not believe architecture is everything and we are constantly exiting the discipline, making the crossing. It is there where all of these situations mingle. I believe it is hard to say: So, well, and how much is it about architecture and space? This is an hybrid field of entering and exiting, of bringing back things, trying
them out. This is where all these reflected notions lie. [AD]: I said the previous thing regardins Xenakis developing work from architecture, to answer the initial question. When you thought about the tracks to be developed here at the studios: Did you thought from architecture? Or did you conceived them only from the perspective of the nonmusician or the musician? Is there any relation between what you developed for this record and architecture?
[MK]: And space, to be a bit broader. [AD]: Right, in the role of the architect, you think and say: You know what, I am going to develop this piece because for me it means a disciplinary development around architecture but I am taking it to music. [MK]: There is an issue I already mentioned in my case, which was my composition at the Contemporary Arts Museum. Or what we did here with the students on the rooftop. Both
were projects conceived on a quite focused spatial level and they are performance and installation works. They already incorporate that crossing. [JA]: Cool. [MK]: That would be quite direct, versus other times at which I have realized projects that are more compositional in the studio, so to speak. And there I would really say the closeness with the discipline becomes more diffuse. I could only establish it with the idea that they were built as sound
passages that have certain spatial features. That would be the only point at which I could‌ [AD]: A point in common with‌ [MK]: In this kind of more studio-oriented composition there are millions of micro links to certain spatial ideas. But it is not worked on directly, like saying: Yes, I am going to generate a project mixing sound and space. [JP]: I have the same precept Mathias states. What I could have done before, such as
the ÂŤDesfaseÂť cycle itself was intentionally a spatial intervention, making a nod to polytopes and the idea of producing music with microphones picking up the silences. Mathias also helped me. It was a co-creation with the spectators or participants, which was no longer the relation between those presenting the performance and the others who passively watch. The point was to slightly cross that idea. In the case of Urbanistas Planetarios the notion leads us to imaginaries because you put two words
together that lead you to issues, a sub-context perhaps. Obviously for me that is an influence of urban theory a political position, and a declared metro Marxism, but not for the other participants of the project. It speaks of cosmic, even metaphysical issues, like understanding that in the end we can stray from our everyday context and imagine we come from an infinitely emptiness, the only beings that exist. We are the exception to the rule, as ŽiŞek said. The only conscious life, and beyond it there is nothing. Taking the
conversation to that plane or expression is also quite attractive and it questions you back, it is a mirror. Why could that not be part of the debate or a spatial expression as well? [AD]: But in short, what is on the tape is not a diversification of your work as architects. It is not conceived from your discipline but it is rather an almost spontaneous manifestation, almost bluesy. [JP]: I could not produce what I do without having had the education or the curiosity that
comes from the discipline. Perhaps, it is also a creativecritical manifestation of the discipline. That is: because I did not learnt this, because I do not have this tool in order to realize spatial interventions as I have made houses, chapels, as I have dealt with urban issues perhaps. It seems to me that this is a super possibility, especially in what is particular. For me it is about skipping the client, skipping the market. Fortunately we do something else, we are academics and I do not have any commercial obligation, so to say, within
everything this sound and space production is. This is difficult even for musicians, it is something related to coexistence, and that does not apply in this case. That is almost existentialist, because you would have to review even my own discipline. But I have a really hard time separating them. I see it as part of the same process, both in architecture as in sound-space. [MK]: The opposite happened to me. It was from music that I generated a link with architecture. It had to do with
several years during architecture school with the band Cerros de improvisación and with an improvisation system. Later, when I was studying architecture I told myself: Why can’t I have this liberty here? I also want to improvise spatially. Why can’t I have this? There were these collective music sessions and that is how it was elaborated. The other day I was looking a documentary on Youtube in which they established that improvisational composition was quite different on a brain level than traditional notation. That they activated two
different parts of your brain. So I thought how to transfer that towards architecture. With the architecture colective Toma we performed exercises in which we said: hey, what if we improvise? Let’s take all of these materials here. And we started to collectively building chairs, exchanging opinions and several weird issues emerged, but we were in that sphere. It was totally liberating for me at that point to say: I can also build with my hands, using this compositional technique, which is improvisation. So I transferred it from music towards architecture,
more than the other way. [AD]: And to round that up, your turn teacher! [JA]: For me, this tape is a possibility to record a moment. I remember something Juan Pablo did with Martin Gubbins at Matucana 100 cultural center; things we have done at the AriztiaLab think-tank or here on the UDLA rooftop. Things which probably and perfectly represent and match that idea of sound, body and space. The tape in a way, resumes those exercises
and what it does is to enter the infrastructure that UDLA facilitates us, registering that moment. For me in particular Sonora Guantรกnamo was something necessary for me. Taking my, perhaps familiar background which is more like a straight line and my development as a person, I have affirmed a political position, and for me the Sonora is that. Finding Carlos Soto, who has developed booktranslation exercises of very political poetry, associated with political spaces, it provides the possibility for the Sonora to
be able to– I don’t want to say “spatialize”– but making that speech into sound. I believe he is a large part of the project. I try, from percussion, to make the synthesizers I do not have. I do not have machines to play the synth, so… [AD]: But that is clever. [JA]: Right, there is a search from percussion to generate a synth, that’s it more or less. [AD]: To round up, and without coming from architecture, I perceive there is a relation.
My music at least has a great deal of architecture. The constructive part, the development of layers, of a methodology, of steps that are followed, the development of a value chain that culminates in a final product, a musical composition. So, the question aimed to check that nobody tells us that what we did was not architecture, right? Make it clear that, no matter how pop it is, how harmonic it is, it is architecture. Because in a way, what we developed exists in some part of the chain, that correlation exists.
[JA]: Old school teachers told you: “This is not architecture�. That was a classic, and I believe we are educating in a different way.
DOUBLE RECORD A1 – Urbanistas Planetarios – Hay Alguien Ahí A2 – Sonora Guantánamo – 23 de Noviembre de 2002, Cero Doscientas Horas A3 – Dúo Trópico – Origen B1 – Ismo – Canción para desaparecer B2 – Dimensión11 – Bobby, Alan & Martin (Star) Bonus Track – Grupo Dos – Polanco Elevator. A1 and A3: recorded and mixed by Camilo Peña at UDLA, 2018. A2, B1 and B2: recorded by Camilo Peña at UDLA, mixed by Nicolás Godas at Estudios del Feeling, 2018.8 Anniversary Edition. Mixed at Estudio Feeling by Nicolás Godas and Abraham Vicencio. 2019.
DIMENSIÓN11 // Alvaro Daguer DUO TRÓPICO // Sofía Balbontín & Mathias Klenner ISMO // Guayo Pérez SONORA GUANTÁNAMO // José Luis Abásolo & Carlos Soto URBANISTAS PLANETARIOS // Macarena Atria, JP Corvalán & Julio Suárez
URBANISTAS PLANETARIOS is an experimental sound and space project characterized by a mixture of text and analogue and electronic resources. It is multidisciplinary composed of writerjournalist Macarena Atria (1983) and architects Juan Pablo Corvalán (1973, also in Supersudaca-Susuka) and Julio Suárez (1980, also in Republica Portatil).
SONORA GUANTÁNAMO is a sound poetry project; vocals and texts are developed by poet and translator Carlos Soto Román, while percussion, sound and loops are controlled by architect and social agitator José Abásolo.
DUOTRÓPICO mixes synthesizer sound with electronic tracks, vocals and self-made experimental instruments. Their sound wanders between noise and lethargic melodies combined with pre-Columbian instruments such as the ñolkin. It is composed of Sofia Balbontín (1985) and Mathias Klenner.
ISMO pays homage to psychedelia, krautrock and electronica and looks toward romantic songs and Chilean folklore. Canción para desaparecer (Song for Disappearing) is included in Ficciones (Fictions), the first solo record by architect Eduardo Pérez (1984).
DIMENSIÓN11 cultivates a low-fi sound while working with frequencies and repetitive layers. It is composed of engineer Álvaro Daguer (1978) and members of musical improvisation ex collective La Banda’s, A Full Cosmic Sound and Glorias Navales (GxNx). It was formed in 2017 and up to today D11 have performed in Santiago and La Serena and are about to record their first album.
ABOUT THE TEACHERS MEMBERS OF THESE PROJECTS: Jose Abásolo is Professor at UDLA Architecture School and Outreach Coordinator of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Building.
Sofía Balbontín is Professor at UDLA Architecture School. Juan Pablo Corvalán is Director of the UDLA Architecture School. Álvaro Daguer works as Studies Engineer at UDLA Vice-Rectory for Quality Assurance and Institutional Analysis. Mathias Klenner is Professor at UDLA Architecture School. Julio Suárez is Professor at UDLA Architecture School.
This project was developed by the Language and Creation Core, an interdisciplinary research-creation centre, at Universidad de las AmĂŠricas Faculty of Architecture, Design and Building. The works accompanying this publication were recorded at the Audio Engineering studios from the Faculty of Engineering and Business at UDLA University in Santiago de Chile between April and May 2018.
Prior to these sessions these projects developed a first live presentation in the frame of Udlapallooza 2018, the Architecture School academic year opening event. Double Record Anniversary Edition contains a previously unreleased work made by the Quimerotropo Workshop Students, for the 20th Chile Architecture Biennial, in Valparaiso, 2017.
Editorial committee: José Abásolo, Juan Pablo Corvalán, María Adelina Gatíca, Mathias Klenner, Fernando Portal, Rodrigo Valenzuela. Graphic Design: Rodrigo Dueñas. Diagramación: Cristián Fernández, Natalia Hurtado. Animation: Cristián Freire. General Production (Audio): Álvaro Daguer. Transcript: Connie Moreira. Translation: José Miguel Trujillo. Text Editing: Macarena Atria and Fernando Portal. Proofreading: Fernando Portal. Thanks to Jorge Bacigalupo, Director of the Audio Engineering School.
SIDE A A1 – Urbanistas Planetarios – Hay Alguien Ahí A2 – Sonora Guantánamo – 23 de Noviembre de 2002, Cero Doscientas Horas A3 – Dúo Trópico – Origen SIDE B IB1 – Ismo – Canción para desaparecer B2 – Dimensión11 – Bobby, Alan & Martin (Star) Bonus Track – Grupo Dos – Polanco Elevator. A1 and A3: recorded and mixed by Camilo Peña at UDLA, 2018. A2, B1 and B2: recorded by Camilo Peña at UDLA, mixed by Nicolás Godas at Estudios del Feeling, 2018.8 Anniversary Edition.
Mixed at Estudio Feeling by Nicolás Godas and Abraham Vicencio. 2019.