"Around Sound", Curtocircuíto's most complete event program

[31.08.2017]

• The encounters will host more than a dozen international professionals and artists, four workshops, one seminar, four talks, one performance, two film programs, a concert and one exhibition.

• Internationally renowned professionals and artists, such as Biritsh musician and writer David Toop, sound artist Francisco López, well known for his immersive performances and Argentinian Ricardo Steinberg, three time winner of the Goya award for best sound for the films Tesis, The Others and The Sea Inside, will be amongst the guests.

• The program of events has been curated in collaboration with Galician sound artist and researcher Xoán-Xil López, member of former Escoitar.org and will host other well known Galician researchers and creators such as Sonsoles Hernández, Blanca Rego, Javier Trigales, Javier Martín, Miguel Alonso Cambrón, José Manuel López or La Metamovida member, Mateo Mena.

Around Sound is a program of interdisciplinary encounters to discuss the concept of sound as a form of expression and way of knowledge, organized with the support of Agadic Galicia ProFilme. The Obra Social Abanca building, located in Cervantes Square will host most of the events, some of which will be free of charge, establishing itself as a new venue for the festival.

Faced with the conventional hegemony of the image in the world of film, Curtocircuíto wants to highlight the sound as a language and of means of expression, not only in the cinematographic realm. These encounters will deal with aspects such as sound landscape, field recording, ethnography, sensory immersion and synesthesia and will be the highlight of Curtocircuíto – Festival Internacional de Cine fourteenth edition, set up around a number of events, not only educational but also artistic, such as installations and performances on public spaces.

The presence of British musician and writer David Toop will be one of the main features of Around Sound. Known in Spain for his book Ocean of Sound and with more than twenty records released- the first of them in legendary Brian Eno’s label, Obscure - is one of the most outstanding personalities in experimental ambient music, But he is well known, above all, for his work as a critic and historian. In addition to being assistant editor and columnist for magazines such as The Wire and The Face, Toop is the author of several essential books as Rap Attack, Haunted Weather and Sinister Resonance. He will give a talk and a two-day workshop.

Within the educational program, workshops will build several approaches to the concept of sound as The Audible Trail. From phonography to sound design where Juan Carlos Blancas, will bring us closer to the aesthetics, theories and techniques of phonographic creation and field recording from his extensive experience in the field of production and sound design for audiovisual media. Rewind! Sound experiments with cassette tapes, by Mateo Mena, Focusing on a handy and accessible do-it-yourself (DIY) approach, Rewind! embarks on DIY and sound recycling that seeks to rethink both our relationship with technology and its obsolescence, as well as the processes of contemporary creation and experimental music. Last but not least, choreographer Javier Martín will create in Body and vibration an open space for experimentation in Salón Teatro, exploring the relationships between body and space starting with a very personal, dynamic work in which philosophy, improvisation, dance and performativity are part of a single discourse. It will be a free workshop made in collaboration with Centro Dramático Galego.

Javier Trigales will teach the seminar Sound of Thunder. Visual landscapes and soundscapes in American cinema. Scriptwriter, programmer and film curator for museums and festivals, his seminars are an audiovisual crusher, a direct heterodox, sensory and emotional approach to the material he addresses using infinite audiovisual examples that build (and destroy) temporal, spatial, aesthetic and ethical bridges.

The educational offer will include three conferences that will take place in Obra Social Abanca in Cervantes square. Environmentalound matter and immersive listening, where Francisco López, one of the best known Spanish experimental sound artists will explain his work with environmental sounds does not try to depict a supposed “reality”, but rather he creates new worlds of sound experience based on the transformation of that “reality”. López, will also perform in Curtocircuíto one of his famous experiences of sound immersion. Awarded sound engeneer Ricardo Steinberg will visit Santiago de Compostela in collaboration with ECAM to teach Sound does matter where the creation of audio and its expressive possibilities will be discussed. Dorsal Landscape. An Approach to Sound Ethnography will include an exchange of ideas around sound as ethnography with Miguel Alonso Cambrón, Xabier Erkizia and Nader Koochaki. Finally, Vigo-born researcher and lecturer Sonsoles Hernández Barbosa, PhD in Université de Paris-Sorbonne and Universidad Complutense de Madrid, will share her knowledge around the status acquired by the senses in the experience of modernity in the conference Synesthesias.

Around Sound will present an artistic program featuring, together with Francisco López’s performance, the concert of experimental artist Álex Mendizábal and the exhibition Diafonias with installations of artists and sound collectives  such as Vázquez/Arrieta, Ulobit, Undersound, Xabier Erkizia and Nader Koochaki, amongst others. The exhibition will be held at Edificio Obra Social Abanca and is organised in partnership with CGAC, which will lend works by Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz.

Around Sound will also show two film programs and will have a guest festival. This year will be Ertz, an event held since 2000 in Bera (Navarra), showing different aspects of contemporary art, especially in the sound and experimental realms.

With Around Sound, Curtocircuíto develops a project that started in 2016, inviting musician and sound artist Xabier Erkizia to teach a workshop about the uses of sound as a narrative device for film language. The success of the proposal has culminated in the creation of Around Sound, a specific space for reflection on sound, included in this year’s program, which will continue in future editions. This is an evolution in the festival model, which is reinvented every year.

Registration for the events, organised with the support of Axencia Galega das Industrias Culturais (Agadic) through its training program Galicia ProFilme and the collaboration of Basque festival Ertz, CGAC, ECAM and Centro Dramático Galego,is open on the festival’s webiste.