Installation: TONSPUR_display #12

Juliana Herrero
Pequeño Concierto [Audio cabinet]

until 21.05.2025l TONSPUR_display, MQ Schauräume | free entry

In “Pequeño Concierto” by Juliana Herrero a soundscape unfolds where sculptural elements are combined in space and time as music. The multi-part installation forms an acoustic chamber where sound manifests as a palpable natural phenomenon. Sounds from nature, synthetic sounds and string instruments intermingle to sound like frozen auditory experiences that reverberate in our imagination.

The work engages with climate challenges and provides food for thought concerning the ways that this discourse is exploited in a political context. It explores a poetic tradition tied to colonialisation and decolonialisation, supplemented by subtle and thought-provoking interventions, such as an adapted Wiphala flag and sounds. The key footage was recorded in Patagonia, for instance at the Laguna Verde and the Chimehuin river, with delicately transposed sonic motifs overlapping in layers. The base level forms a terrain, a Surreal score unfolding tonally and atonally like a timeless multidimensional image. Piezo microphones lend physical presence to all the fragments of sound, while the glass casings of the TONSPUR_display provide an interface for frail reverberations.

Mixed media elements from the three series “Planet[A]zul”, “Hybrid Series” and “Lines and Loops” sometimes function as musical instruments that can be played to create fantasy worlds for the earth and the sky with abstract configurations. So the space becomes an atmospheric structure, while QR codes allow the addition of further layers of sound: “The Sound of Kiwis and Butterflies” and of oceanic scenery. Some of the pieces look like archeological exponents from the future displaying both digital and analogue facets.
The installation is permeated by material with shared characteristics, with sine waves that go beyond post-humanism and the Anthropocene, allowing us to appreciate that the soundtrack is a habitat we can all share.

Image © Juliana Herrero