FROM BLANCA TO NEGRA, FROM NEGRA TO ROTA was made during a residency at AADK Spain in November 2023 with the support of AC/E Cultura
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I arrived in Blanca at night with a huge suitcase and my 2 years old daughter
We stayed in one of the houses at the top of Centro Negra. I went to bed in big shock that night after realizing the slope I would have to climb up every day to get home. When it dawned the next day and I could see the landscape, the shock was different and just as great. Pink light swinging over the sea of roofs -`´. ·' ^ the mountain like a sawtooth ring around the village -_ ._ . . ' ' the river, the bells, the reservoir far in the background like an oasis.
If you know Blanca, I won't need to explain why its weird stinging lysergic beauty struck me. However, if you are not a mother, you may not understand the physical feat of inhabiting this landscape with a two-year-old baby. A small approximation would be to try go up and down with a 12 kg sack of potatoes tied to your back (no offense Mariola! ;)
The first days were exhausting. I was alarmed. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do anything there other than climbing the hill. How to develop an artistic research with such a daily task? Down to get some groceries, back up; down to the parkground, up again; down, up, up, down, up, up, up. In Centro Negra you go up more than you go down!
And then the idea came to me. That was going to be the job.
As a hard-working soundscapist Sisyphus, I began to record each ascent. After three days I decided to expand the challenge in full performance mode. I put my daughter in her little carrying backpack and made a pilgrimage with her on my back to the highest point, the rock from where the Virgin of Blanca looks down on the town. On the walk, milestones awaited us that seemed to have been placed on purpose. A choir of bells, different textures of soil, Arabic music playing on a mobile phone when arriving at the castle, and at the top an unexpected mirror, she expressed it very well: mom, look! The lady and the baby!
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I have been carrying out different sound experiments over that field recording, they have taken me to places that were completely unexplored for me until now: from soundscape to improvisation to ambient. I kept the original recording as it was and armed a little digital set (I couldn't carry much hardware to this trip) with delays, reverbs and loopers. Then let myself go in several improvised sessions. The bells melody starts with the fifth interval that the bells play at Blanca to announce the o'clock hours.
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This piece is the proposal of a walk that you can take literally if you are in Blanca, starting from the intersection between the street that leads to Centro Negra and the one that goes up to the castle and from there to the virgin. I suggest you download the piece and listen to it while you go up. You should preferably wear open/non-isolating headphones to simultaneously appreciate the sounds of your own walk.
If you are not in Blanca you can listen to it either by taking a different walk (preferably uphill), or you can have a sit in some quiet place. There I propose a meditative listening, pure ear and mental drift.
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Thanks for your attention, hope you enjoy it!
credits
released December 11, 2023
Con el apoyo de Acción Cultural Española AC/E
GRACIAS
al centro AADK, en especial a Selu y a Giuliana,
a Ana que cuidó de Mariola
a Mariola, por supuesto
al resto de artistas invitadas vecinas del Centro Negra que influyeron muy claramente en esta pieza
gracias a Blanca y su paisaje
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