Prison voice/resonances
Voice, (2006)
The sound and visual intervention takes place in the three rooms on the second floor of the museum. In each room a video is projected that captures the image of that same space projected on the background wall, creating a space that unfolds beyond the physical walls and real time. As the viewer moves through the rooms, 16 motion sensors are activated to give an outlet to fragments of male and female voices of Colombians detained in English and Colombian prisons. As the viewer moves through the room, pairs of voices located on the columns are activated. When the visitor stops the voice disappears.
In the installation Voz / Resonancias de la prisión (Voice / Resonancias de la prisión), he rescues the sound trace of bodies annihilated by the prison institution, exile, and also by an architecture of power and control over Colombian prisoners, both abroad and in the country. These bodies whose relationship with the environment, space, and the passage of time has been broken, are dematerialized in a limbo where their hands and skin lose all contact with reality, their feet no longer rest on anything, their identity is erased, where any inscription falls apart, and their words cannot establish a dialogue.
During 2003, and for six months, I conducted a series of visits, meetings and creative workshops with Colombian prisoners in different prisons. Understanding that prison progressively cancels the link with reality by diminishing each prisoner’s own expression and contact, I was interested in investigating and amplifying these tiny worlds through activities that fluctuated between visits and creative workshops. This experience produced an essentially sonorous material that became the generator of the work Voz / Resonancias de la prisión.
VOICE, Liverpool Biennial, England, 2010 (Project no longer empty)
TECHNICAL DATA
Voice Resonances of the Prison
Interactive sound installation
3 Rooms on the second floor of the National Museum of Colombia
16 sensors per room
Video projection in rooms 1 and 2
5.1 sound in room 3
2005
ARTICLE OF INTEREST
– Voice, resonances of prison. By: Marta Rodríguez.
– Visibility without compensatory image. By: Clemencia Echeverri.
– Topology and deconstruction in art: reconfigurations of the museum space. By: Gustavo Gómez P.
– Voice. By: Clemencia Echeverri.
GUION
Lo primero que una sociedad empieza a castigar cuando está inmersa en un conflicto es la palabra. La tendencia hacia la defensa de alguna amenaza es desconfiar, perseguir y, sobre todo, callar. A través de la voz proyectamos nuestro intercambio con los demás, contenemos una historia sin contar, reservada y privada. Hablar requiere la atención del otro, la voz es el órgano que está entre dos. La voz es un espacio de contacto, de presencia política, de atención. Se trata de devolver la dignidad, hacer justicia al otro, generar un eco que resuene y recobre la importancia del reconocimiento. Es poder llegar a ser escuchados.
Clemencia Echeverri
BEHIND THE SCENES
TEAM
LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL
CREDITS
General direction: Clemencia Echeverri
Camera: Andrés Guzmán
Sound: Nicolás Guarín y Clemencia Echeverri
Sound design: Daniel Prieto
Sound editing: Santiago Camacho
Video editing: Diego León
Production: Lattitude ltda
Distribution: Galería Alonso Garcés, Bogotá
