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JOAQUÍN GUTIÉRREZ HADID

Sustain

In 2017, Argentine artist Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid created a site-specific sound installation called “cuarto oscuro”, exhibited on the 6th floor of a public building beside a train station in Buenos Aires. Installed in a large space for night time viewing and composed of an amplifier, a mp3 player and four speakers arranged in the dark, the only light for this room with a view to the terminal was from the outside through the windows.

The source material used for the installation was obtained with contact microphones placed on a train traffic barrier and its respective bell. The work aimed to propose a sensitive approach to the sounds of bells as an acoustic sign: a wait for the unexpected while standing for listening, a stillness presence between the acousmatic and the fuse of city lights—the cold and the dark.

‘Sustain’ is the result of complementary explorations around the source recordings of ‘cuarto oscuro’ and the installation sound itself. Along with this materials, Gutiérrez Hadid recorded another bell at the studio and a steel beam from his house, located near the railroad of that train line. This material was additionally processed with computer and tape manipulation.

“The pieces extend my interest in the flux of sounds originated on bells and steel, to land in a space of underlying figures and affections: a dark room for intimacy and spatial engagement. It´s highly recommended to listen in the dark.” — JGH

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Catalog:
LINE_097
Format:
digital
Edition:
open edition
Release:
August 2018
Tracklist:

1. el dorado (19:54) 2. cuatro oscuro (14:22) 3. sustain (10:52)

Thanks to the people who support my work: Américo del Sur, Alejo Ponce de León, Milena Pafundi, Ezequiel Azambuya, Mario Navarro, Andrés Denegri, Ezequiel Fanego, Mariana Rodríguez Iglesias, Juan José Calarco, Brandon LaBelle and Fabio Perletta.
A special thanks to Richard Chartier and LINE. Dedicated to Chris Gruenberg.
copyright 2018 Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid published by LINE

Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid (b. 1986) explores intensities through the broad realm of listening. Places, objects, memories and being in transit are his main interests and source materials to instigate crossings between experience and parallel realities. In 2016, he was artist in residence at MACBA (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires), and has also exhibited works at Ruth Benzacar, cck (centro cultural kirchner), CCEBA, and performed at MUTEK. His previous releases are documented on LINE, Errant Bodies Press, and/oar, 901editions and Impulsive Habitat. He lives and works in Buenos Aires. jgutierrezhadid.art

REVIEWS OF
Sustain

  • 1- Ecos. Resonancias. Texturas acuáticas que se balancean en ondas. El tañido de las campanas está a punto de anunciar algo. Las frecuencias están en una ondulación constante que, sin importar cuán alterado el escenario, mantienen cohesión. Ahora nos sumergimos en estas ondas atraídos por la costa. Cercanía. Hay diferentes perspectivas sonoras en comunión y nuestra percepción del espacio se modifica lentamente. Se genera el tiempo -o espacio- suficiente para familiarizarse con las diferentes formas del sonido. Algo resuena desde las profundidades del agua, ¿Nosotros?

    La orilla se siente más cerca mientras las vibraciones alcanzan la superficie. Si fuera un paisaje, sería nocturno, en el campo. Esta penumbra no está generada por la ausencia de luz. Es la  oscuridad que rodea al televisor al enfocar nuestra mirada en la pantalla sin cerrar los ojos. La apariencia de las cosas puede variar drásticamente. ¿Alguna vez te miraste a los ojos en el espejo sin parpadear, hasta que el objeto de tu mirada empieza a cambiar? Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid se encuentra en búsqueda del núcleo de un sonido. Y una vez allí, lo desnuda y cambia su esencia para convertirlo en algo distinto.

    ¿No compartimos, acaso, los mismos elementos con todo lo que nos rodea? Y si fuera así, ¿No debería suceder lo mismo con el sonido? A pesar de estar elaborado con una técnica en detalle, la obra permanece disfrutable.

    2- Oscilaciones y lapsos prolongados de silencio en el comienzo, como si se necesitara una distancia al principio. Algunos procesos de distorsión nos hacen pensar en la estática, glitches, y el tic-tac de un reloj. El paneo en las campanas nos relaja, preparándonos para una experiencia trascendental.

    Ahora hay pausas más largas en lugar del movimiento. Semejante a un proceso de transmutación, estas vibraciones transmiten el lenguaje de la ciencia ficción. ¿Cómo suena el viento en Marte? Al final, solo quedan remansos, moviéndose con los últimos soplidos. Un groove suave y matizado da la impresión de ser el resultado de un complejo mecanismo.

    3- El repiqueteo superpuesto y algunos rasgueos en la superficie juguetean sobre una respiración metálica. ¿Cómo sería el sonido si los cyborgs respirasen? Si todo esto fuese cierto, ¿Cómo sonaría una criatura robótica y mitológica al susurrar un arrorró? Aparecen las primeras notas reconocibles, y emanan nostalgia. Es el anhelo de un pasado que no debería olvidarse. ¿Es este nuestro futuro? ¿Cuán profundo hemos llegado?

    Mientras nos hacemos esta última pregunta, regresa un tic tac reconocible, y nos recuerda los inicios de este viaje. Y nos hace pensar en palíndromos. ¿Cuántos perfiles puede tener una fuente de sonido? Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid acaba de hacer un intento por responder esta interrogante. Y el resultado es hermoso.
    (Para Mi, AR)

  • This three track full length by Argentine artist Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid will be out on August 30th. It’s quite invisible at first, but el dorado slowly opens with a wee twinkle of electronic shimmer and a few pops. Clocking in with a running time of nearly twenty minutes the minimal work shakes to and fro like a dna sample being sequenced. The impenetrable atmosphere might be mistaken for sampling the near invisible wings of a hummingbird in flight. The teeny rat-a-tat comes off like the dichotomy between a mechanical signal and cicada hatching. This is certainly best via headphones. cuarto oscuro which translates to dark room, offers minimalism through near virtual silent pauses, paired with low and deep drone, a sizzling and finely granular effects. It takes its paces in time and void. Though some may expect the unexpected to pop or emerge from the sidelines at any given moment, instead Hadid offers the ‘om’ of tuning forks and minute percussion.  The atmosphere bodes multiple transparencies playing on fore/background. No notes are sustained for any length of time, here the sounds have a sense of segregation, of stillness. The bowls or gong he uses are centering as they are deployed sparsely, at random. The silences are a perfect foil for the searing sizzle towards the end. Finally we pick up or continue that same crackling sear with higher volume on the more compacted conclusion,sustain. By combining microsounds with drone an atonal melody begins to materialize. I’m unsure if what I hear are various alarms or church bells, or some sort of modernized twist of experimental ambient music – or a fusion of the above. That said, the atmosphere formed is more or less an exploration than a meditation, though bits are presented ala noir cinema-in-progress. I can almost sense the passage of ‘time’ here – as if the awareness of it is fleeting, fading, fast. And….time’s up. (toneshift.net) + 1- It echoes. A bell echoes. Textures and what seems to be water comes back and forth in waves. The bells jingling are about to announce something. It gains intensity. Frequencies are in a constant modulation that, no matter how altered the background might get, they still feel cohesive. Now we are submerging in these waves as if we were being dragged by the shore. There is closeness. There are different sound perspectives in a communion, and our own concept of space is being slowly modified. There is enough time -or space- for the listener to familiarise with the different shapes of sound. Something resonates from the depths of water. Is it us? The shore feels closer now, vibrations reach the surface in a more distinctive way. If this was a landscape, it would be a nocturnal one, out in the countryside. This darkness is not generated by the absence of light. This is the same darkness that surrounds an old television set in our perception when we focus on the screen for a long time without closing our eyes. The shape of things can vary drastically. Have you ever stared at yourself in the mirror without blinking, until what you see starts changing? Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid seems to be in an introspective path of chasing the core of a sound, spotting it, getting it undressed and then switching its essence into something else. Don’t we all share the same elements with everything that surrounds us? And if so, shouldn’t the same thing happen to sound waves? Though generated with an in-detail technique, this work remains definitely enjoyable. 2- There is motion and longer lapses of silence in the beginning. As if a bigger distance should be needed at first. Heavy distortion processes make us think of static, glitches and the smooth ticking of a clock. The panning effect on the bells makes our perception stretch, as if preparing it for a transcendental experience. What seemed to be motion in the beginning now shifts into longer pauses. As in the middle of a process of transmutation, these metallic vibrations are now in a sci-fi language. How does the wind sound in Mars? In the end, there are remains, still moving with the last winds. A soft and textured groove gives the impression of being the result of a complex machinery system. 3- Overlapping ticking and some surface scratches twinkle around a metallic breathing. What would it sound like if cyborgs would breathe? And if so, what would it sound like if a gigantic cyborg-creature of mythological origins would moan a lullaby? The first recognisable notes appear, and they emanate nostalgia. It’s the yearn for a past that shouldn’t be forgotten. Is this our future? How deep have we been submerging here? Just as we ask ourselves that question, a recognisable ticking returns, and makes us remember the beginning of this journey. It makes us think of palindromes. How many shapes can one source of sound have? Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid just made an attempt in answering that question. And the result is utterly beautiful. (cyclicdefrost.com)

  • Joaquin Guiterrez Hadid’s “Sustain” album is an outgrowth of a sound sculpture installation initially presented in Buenos Aires in 2017. The composer’s idea was to collect sounds from a train station (specifically a traffic barrier and bell), digitally alter them, and play them back at night in a darkened room inside a large, dark building next to the station itself. The three tracks on “Sustain” are not, as far as I understand, strictly two-channel mixes of the installed sound. Recomposing them was probably a smart move, making it work for listeners who are likely not standing near Argentine train stations at night. The sonic elements and the pacing they dictate remain: a steady ebb and flow of a bell’s metallic clang, an undulating low tone, and the tell-tale clatter of a train car on tracks cycling with a Hudak-like steady density. These sounds are plainly recognizable on the first piece, which swings back and forth with the rhythms of snoring or ocean waves on a quiet beach. The second piece uses the same elements, but adds a few more complimentary bells and varies the pacing somewhat. The train-tracks clatter doesn’t emerge as regularly, the low tone alters its volume and duration. More importantly, this piece bears more marks of a composer’s hand, actively manipulating sounds through digital filters and stereo space. In a way, it sounded like Feldman percussion music, the transit noise resembling the restrained roll of tympani drums. The final track is the harshest of the three, as Hadid transforms his bells into peels of high-pitched feedback and the rest of his sounds are ground up into familiar digital clicks. Passages of respite come in the form of recognizable subway-station acoustics that appear fleetingly alongside clipped clicks. The pace, set by the acoustics of the source location, are relatively unchanged from the start of the first piece to the ending of the last, which makes this more enjoyable one piece at a time than all three taken as a single thought. (vitalweekly.net)