Interview with Andr�s Ram�rez Gaviria
Esme Watanabe
Watanabe:
Andrés, what are the sources of the sounds? They seemed abstract and without
reference but gave me the feeling of travelling through a haunted house. I felt
like spirits and ghosts were echoing my steps,, it was a little creepy, but engaging.
Gaviria:
Some of the sounds are a mix of samples that were taken from various Akai format
CDs like Distorted Reality,; others were directly recorded in the 450 Broadway
staircase /in sitú/ in situ, but also mixed through different effects
in order to have all the sounds play within common parameters. In their layering
or juxtaposing, I intended to have them distorted enough so as to heighten and
alter the participant’s experience but still suggest /retain/ an indirect/vague/
reference to the participant’s immediate environment.
Watanabe:
Did you get a sense of how other people reacted to the work? What kind of effect
do changes in volume, speed, or tone have on the participant’s experience?
Gaviria:
The different levels of interaction made the outcome of the participant’s
experience unforeseeable and therefore, more interesting. The changes in volume,
speed, or tone I think made the participants aware that their movements where
not only triggering, but altering, the different sounds, which placed them in
a mutual, though at times unpleasant, relationship with their surroundings.
Watanabe:
IsWas it important that Of Conflicts and Denials wasbe placed in the staircase?
How is itit different from a hallway or a room? Steps often function in dream
imagery as a symbol of a journey or transcendence, — does that have anything
to do with your installation?
Gaviria:
Yes, it iswas important that for the piece was to be installed in the staircase.
I wanted to create a situation where the inter-relationship between the participant
and the environment would played a specific role in the participant’s experience.
Steps often function in dream imagery, as you say, as a symbol of a journey or
transcendence, and that connotation appealed to me. In the cCatholic religion,
transcendence is often believed to be an ascending journey. In some of my last
installations/latest work I have been attempting to invert the illusory leap
of religious transcendence into a cunning system that regurgitates the same disappointing
results. In The Marginal Void, for example, I had a laser drawing the form of
a cross on top of a bed. The cross drew more or less vigorously, depending on
the amount of movement and/or sound made within the exhibition space. Since the
cross served as the only source of light, the participants used it as a seemingly
stable point to navigate the darkness. Paradoxically, any movement by the participants
deformed the cross, stripping it of its recognized meaning. Similarly, in this
installation, having the participants at the top trigger sounds that were emitted
at the bottom of the staircase and vice versa, I had hoped to create a kind of
looping effect that diminished the linear idea implied by walking frorm one point
to another, the feeling of reaching the end of a journey. The four cameras and
monitors installed inon each of the landings were also intended to give the participant
a similar sense of displacement.
Watanabe:
What about using thethat specific particular staircase at 450 Broadway? It is
creaky, old, rickety, and is littered with holes; did it function as a kind of
found object?
Gaviria:
The fact that it is creaky, old and littered with holes appealed to a personal
sensibility that seems to inform the a lot of the formal and conceptual decisions
I make about my work.
Watanabe:
I noticed that the sound was emitted through very impressive looking “BOSE”
speakers lashed to the ceiling,. hHow does this specific type of technology function
in the piece? Is it significant that the sound is coming from above the participant?
Gaviria:
Well, the speakers are unidirectional, which helped set apart, through sound,
different sections of the staircase. They still have, however, an angle of about
80 degrees which made it possible to create some panning effects that ran a sample
from one speaker to another, making the sound travel distinctly and accurately
through space. Hanging the speakers and sub-base from the ceiling was more of
a technical solution. Because of the acoustics in the staircase, the speakers
and especially the sub-base needed to have some space in front and around them
so as not to have the sound waves reverberate off the walls and affect the quality
of the sound. It was also safer and more secure, even though theits installation
was complicated and time consuming, to have the equipment out off hands’
reach during the exhibition.
Watanabe:
What are the sources of inspiration or ideas behind Of Conflicts and Denials?
What is communicated to the viewer? What does the title of the piece mean?
Gaviria:
Of cConflicts and Denials developed from The Marginal Void, the installation
I had previously exhibited.
It further accentuates the conflict ofbetween the individual with and his or
her immediate environment, while pointing to an inability to accept or deal with
that conflict. The work, however, as I have previously expressed, is not a mere
statement of information or persuasion but a direct link with a specific state
of being. Even though the work addresses themes of religion/spirituality, technology,
and the self, I hope the content of the work does not become immediately apparent,
but that it unravels through the experience of the participant. The most interesting
pieces of art, I believe, are successful not for what they show but for what
they conceal.
Watanabe:
I read an interesting article in tThe New York Times Magazine by Marshall Sella
about Hyper Sonic Sound. HSS “directs the sound as a laser beam directs
light,.” tThe sound shot at someone seems like it is coming from within
the individual’s head and not from the outside environment. HSS is already
being used by the military as a weapon, — it will probably revolutionize
advertising and the experience of hearing music, — but do you think HSS
has any implications for art?
Gaviria:
I am sure it will have implications infor the way some artists use sound.
New technological developments can offer new representational possibilities and
experiences. They can create, as ithas already been shown with existing technologies,
alterations in the personal and social experience of time, space and place. They
can often offer a variety of possibilities that generate a shift in our perception
of reality.
For an artist, however, the medium is only the starting point. Ultimately, the
work has to be rooted or comprehensible in other aspects other than the technological
development / novelty of its constituent parts.
