Tales from the Mountaintop
(2023)
Sound performative action documented in video
Three Channel video, HD h.264, colour, stereo, 10:00 min
Project commisioned by CIFO Art Foundation
premiered at Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria, 2023
watch mono channel version on Vimeo
Tales from the Mountaintop is a three-channel sound performative audiovisual work in collaboration with people who live in extreme poverty and sociopolitical disenchantment in different parts of the island of Cuba, mostly in the vicinity of the mountains of the Sierra Maestra: a place located in the east of Cuba loaded with a historical connotation in the 1950s for being the battlefield and conquest of the Cuban Revolution.
From the confines of their homes, inhabitants of these regions were invited to reproduce the soundscape of what was once a glorious journey through the mountains made by Castro’s guerrillas. By using Foley Art (a technique used in cinema to reproduce sounds absent from our environment) each person was invited to create specific sounds from the objects and materials found in the rubble and garbage dumps where they live. The sequences of sounds responded to key moments of such heroic battle. A glorious battle that can only emerge from the garbage and ruins of the present times.
From the confines of their homes, inhabitants of these regions were invited to reproduce the soundscape of what was once a glorious journey through the mountains made by Castro’s guerrillas. By using Foley Art (a technique used in cinema to reproduce sounds absent from our environment) each person was invited to create specific sounds from the objects and materials found in the rubble and garbage dumps where they live. The sequences of sounds responded to key moments of such heroic battle. A glorious battle that can only emerge from the garbage and ruins of the present times.
project presented at Lentos Museum as part of the Ars Electronica festival, 2023.
photo credits: @Ars Electronica![]()
video stills
video stills
