To hear on Sunday 27 March and 3 April 2016, 2pm - 9pm:
El Pozo (the hole)
(2016, Premiere)
by Cecilia Castro (Argentina)
Cecilia Castro on 'El Pozo':
The piece was made entirely with sounds from inside mines.
Workers breaking stones,
landslides,
pumps,
machines.
Low sounds that suffocate, projected lack of oxygen. The reverbs and delays tell us about the space. The sequence of sounds tell about mineral extraction modes in the history of Latin America.
and land sounds louder each time, and sometimes Beats.
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Latin America has a long history and an unfortunate relationship with the extraction of minerals. The arrival of Europeans to America in 1492, write the path by which we are walking today. By that time the Cerro Rico in Potosí (Bolivia) became the International Money Fund for the development of Europe and now is perhaps one of the poorest town of the region.
And nothing has changed. At present there are mining companies, mostly Canadian, who develop open pit mining in the north of my country. The current consequences are not only social and economic but also environmental.
These companies, such as Barrick Gold, not only leave poverty. The systems currently used to extract minerals dry rivers and contaminated with cyanide lands and waters.
Then they go and leave only The Hole…
Audio Field Report no. 44 / Soundactivism 23: Interview with Cecilia Castro by Knut Remond. Limited edition audio cassette, 8 copies numbered. Available at 'ohrenhoch, der Geräuschladen' (and can be heard there on headphone in the archive space).
Cecilia Castro was born in Córdoba in 1980. She received her bachelor degree in electroacoustic media and composition from the National University of Quilmes en 2006. Some of her works have won awards from the San Martín Cultural Center, Telefónica Foundation and Modern Art Museum in Buenos Aires. She presented electronic pieces and works of mixed mediums at important national and international galleries such as Diapason Gallery in New York and Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.
She works as professor at the UNTREF University and directs the project of the digitization of the archive of von Reichenbach at the National University of Quilmes.
She believes in the power of imagination to change the world.
Website Cecilia Castro