martin kaulen



Escuela del fosfeno
Registro hablado
Fosfenos
Desentierro
By sound – Cologne
By sound – Paris
Birdscapes
Les chutes du temps
Geomancia
Palíndromos
EMM
Arbórea
Bambusoideae
Paisaje microscópico
Cool coco gallery
Drone

CV
Contact
Texts

Registro hablado (Spoken record), 2021
Installation
Etnoscòpic Festival
Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món
Barcelona, Spain

A board with a sinuous contour, outlined by a randomly thrown thread, is supported on three stones. On the surface, a balsa wood cylinder moves randomly due to the vibration of sound coming from a surface transducer. A pencil attached to it allows the path to be traced, resulting in a drawing.

Exploring ways of linking memory and sound, recordings in Yámana, Kawésqar and Selknam languages - languages of oral tradition almost in disuse - are employed, materializing the ephemeral nature of the human voice. An intermedial process is established in which the sound is expressed through another medium, the drawing, generating a possible imprint of the chant and the voice.

The recordings were made by the missionary Martin Gusinde around 1920, using wax cylinders as phonographic support. Gusinde's testimony, which also includes photographs and texts describing the native peoples mentioned, illustrates the colonization exercised by Western culture, in this case by economic interests in the region, occupying territories and exiling their inhabitants to later convert them into objects of scientific study.