Infrasonica is a digital platform of non-Western cultures. We record, analyze and debate the eeriness of sound and its auras, linked to the world with the audible, the hidden and the sensitive. Infrasonic waves operate at a frequency that is undetectable by human ears even though they are often generated by massive ecological phenomena, such as the movement of tectonic plates or the deep currents of the ocean. Infrasonica aims to be a catalyst for those vibrations.
The platform includes archives of experimental sound and visual artists, as well as theoretical musings on contemporary critical thought. By relying on a borderless network of collaborators, Infrasonica blends essays, conversations and speculative works that encourage critical curatorial and research projects.
- Audible Matter / WAVE #4
April 2021 - 6
Audible Matter / WAVE #4:
A variation of a popular saying goes “Si el río suena, es porque piedras lleva,” [1] conceding rumor mills as a valid source of knowledge. If many people speak about the same thing with a minimal consensus, there must be an underlying truth to be discovered. Rumors are the encounter of sonic energy and social language.
The entanglement of knowledge and sound is to be understood from within the intimacy of situated collectivities and their relation to the audible. Sound is mediated, translated and negotiated collectively from where systems of non-Western knowledge take shape. The river groans because its materiality is in friction with the world.
Audible Matter, the title of our second Current, aims to think about the conjuncture of soundings and knowing-the-world through an audible experience. Contrary to a reduction of sound to cognitive human processes, we take inspiration in the anthropologist Steven Feld’s work on Acoustemology, considering situated knowledge and social systems that act with the world, and whose knowledge is based in collective memory, anti-colonial resistance and non-human kinship. The notion of knowledge is activated through the de-substantialization of sound, acting as ontological relationality, a sound that is simultaneously situated and fugitive and exists always in relation to others.
With our next set of Waves, we will respond to questions such as: How is sound mediated and translated? How does it shape indigenous epistemologies in tandem with the non-human world? How does the audible engage with the enigmas of silence and infrasonic registers of sound? Where do culture and the materiality of sound find each other? How do the sounds of trans-Atlantic waves pummeling stones into sand build upon a philosophical and existential experience?
We are beginning our exploration of Audible Matter by focusing on these types of questions. Our Wave #4 features sound artists, experimental composers, filmmakers, writers, musicians, scholars and artists.
[1] “If the river groans, it’s because it carries stones.”
Wave Track
Kermesse is a duo from Buenos Aires, Argentina, composed of Pedro and Gurtz. The pair became friends traveling and playing music together, and in 2015, they merged their ideas into a new sonic enterprise.
Their sound could be described as effervescent and colorful, balanced by a stimulating groove born from their unique fusion of electronic sounds with instruments and vocals. Released in 2020 on the album “Awake,” Chacarera del Tiempo embodies this entwinement, suffusing a string-heavy foundation with dreary vocals tied together by extended spells of synthy bass lines.
They have released music on labels such as The Magic Movement, LNDKHN, Kamai Music, Serafin Audio, and more.
As active members of the fabric of contemporary electronic music, Kermesse has remixed or been remixed by artists like Acid Pauli, Mira & Chris, Dorie, Dandara, Noema, and many others.
Their songs have been played by many DJs and producers and their kaleidoscopic live set has taken them to Berlin, Zurich, Moscow, Sochi, TelAviv, Beirut, Istanbul, Mykonos, Amsterdam, Ibiza, Barcelona, and Santiago de Chile.