A Strong, Safe And Sound Structure
by Sebastián Rawicz15’29”
Sebastián Rawicz residency at the Dar Jacir´s Sound Studio started with a question: how to transpose the experience of a space?
When he first entered the small square building made of stones in Dar Jacir´s garden, he perceived it as a sacred structure, a hiding place from which listening would be possible without being seen. A protected place for silence and contemplation. A place of geographical convergence, where the wind rose perfectly opens towards the four walls, creating a harmonical balance at its center.
Is the sacred aura of this space related to its past, to its previous disposal? To its location? To the events it witnessed?
In order to bring his experience back to Santiago, Sebastián decided to create a narrative of the Sound Studio building, tracing its coordinates through sounds and voice recordings. Listeners would have to follow his voice blindly, imagining running their fingers along the white stone walls, as the recorded sound slides on them, embracing the structure of this secret temple.
He investigated the history of the building, he measured it in width and height, counting its stones, observing layers of memories superimposing and coinciding on the walls, reconnecting the strings between different moments in time.
How to be fully present in a space, without understanding it deeply? How to connect with it, immerse in it, without following its historical path, without taking a look at the incertitude of its future?
Sebastián´s narration poses itself as an open invitation for future residents that may be willing to translate it to their own language, adding or subtracting from it according to their experience, transforming it, year after year, into a collective repository of perspectives.
Supported by Nicolàs Jaar.