Resonancia [Resonance] was a cycle of sound interventions that activated the acoustic and historical space of the Edificio Sabatini of the Museo Reina Sofía between May and June 2015. Its conceptual seed drew from my reading of Veit Erlmann’s Reason and Resonance, a book that threads a philosophical history of the concept of resonance and encourages artists to abide by two obstructions:

  1. Don’t use the auditorium.
  2. Don’t use any type of electric amplification.

Why?

On the one hand we opposed the notion of auditorium in keeping with Earlmann’s ideas, his vision that “when we listen to music we are outside the world and inside the music. Listening is living in sound,” so that we wanted to transform spaces where we could listen to history through its resonance. Furthermore, the conceptualization of resonance harkens back to the 17th century, incidentally the period when the old Edificio Sabatini was built. This building is furnished with auditoriums constructing with somewhat effective materials of acoustic absorption, spaces that, in any case, call to be inhabited by contemporary sound. A contemporary sound which has based its modernity in efficacy, in the elimination of distraction and the unnecessary, in its attempt to become “an object ready for consumption,” as Emily Thompson puts it.

On the other hand, this acoustic isolation has been accompanied, since the last century, by electric amplification.

Two tools that have shaped the aesthetic parameters of sound, which have determined our judgment of works and concerts, thus informing a consensus over a canon of quality which has built our listening, sculpted our ear and molded our bodies.

The artists that participated in Resonancia were the following:

  1. Alberto Bernal (with Neopercusión). Mobile para percusión y caminante [Mobile for Drums and Walker] (24/06/2015)
  2. Itziar Okariz. Performance para palmas y sala [Performance for Clapping and Room] (17/06/2015)
  3. Rhodri Davies. Eliane Radigue: Occam (10/06/2015)
  4. Alex Mendizabal. Concierto para un patio, una sala, medio litro de jabón líquido, agua, 248 globos, grifos y etcéteras [Concert for a Courtyard, a Room, half a liter of liquid soap, water, balloons, faucets and etc] (03/06/2015)
  5. Jean-Luc Guionnet y Artur Vidal. Dos conciertos simultáneos para dos escaleras. Farfulleos y Tarabillas [Two Simultaneous concerts for Two Staircases. Jabbering and Stonechat] (27/05/2015)
  6. Mattin, in collaboration with Maite Barreras, S​usana C​armona, Rubén Coll, Fátima Cue, J​ulie M​athieu, Julián M​ayorga, J​orge Ocasio Colón y Marta Sainz. Performance colectiva para bóvedas y voces [Collective Performance for Domes and Voices] (20/05/2015)