Iñaki Ríos | Spain

Iñaki Rios has been working in music related aspects from 1992, including works for street theatre with La Danaus, documentary films with Piensan Las Manos, different free improvisation ensembles, and lately a lot of computer based stuff. Today interests includes his work with Natividad Plasencia as yoko.lennon, lately strongly based in gestural interfaces, and also in different approaches to contemporary music; different works with Rui Costa, and his usual collaboration as musician with humans alike: Nilo Gallego, Pablo Rega, Markus Breuss or Gunter Heinz.

http://losliriosdelbosque.org

Project: Nodar: Espaços Vivos
Category: Sound Art
Co-authors: Rui Costa | Natividad Plasencia
Period: September 2006
Event: "Nodar Pushing the Medium #2" Symposium

“Nodar: Espaços Vivos” is the continuation of a series of interventions carried out by Iñaki Rios and Rui Costa in the village of Nodar. Initiated in 2004 with the multimedia project “Nodar: Matança” and carried on in 2004 with the sound installation “Nodar: Casa Reverberante”, the series is completed with this project.

“Nodar: Matança” was a performance/installation premiered at Musica Ex-Machina 2002 festival, in Bilbao, about an annual event (the traditional pig slaughter) and the space where it occurs (the patio of a rural house) and which dealt with the ancestral conception of the time as a circular reality (agricultural cycles, etc.), which has been recently “modulated” by a progressive abandonment of the space.

“Nodar: Casa Reverberante” consisted on a sound installation inside a nearly unoccupied rural house. Its main purpose was to consider a house as a living organism, which vibrates independently from the human presence, by the effect of time (aging) and the atmosphere (temperature, humidity) on its materials.

With the project “Nodar: Espaços Vivos” we intended to turn our attention to the natural space surrounding the village and set up there a series of sound actions. Following the ancestral foot trails that lead to the sheepherding and agricultural spots outside the village and that nowadays have lost their original function (they lead to “nowhere”), we proposed to identify certain spots that, by the specificity of their soundscape (natural element) and the presence of certain vestiges or abandoned structures that can be sonically manipulated (human element), propitiate the setting up of artistic actions (performances, installations or sound walks).

The trails and the spots where the actions occurred were marked on digitized cartographic maps of the area and the events were recorded on audio and video so that a sonic, visual and geographical memory was constructed.

This project intends to confront a “utilitarian” vision of the space, which is perpetuated by the local inhabitants, with a “vital” notion, according to which the spaces are alive because they exist and transform themselves (even away from the human eye).

Project's video:

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