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Aural Tzompantli
* Winning project of the grant for young creators of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts, and still a work in progress
Background
All sounds undergo transformations before reaching the listener. If we take the example of a recording, it will be reproduced differently depending on the amplifier and type of speaker we are using, as well as the space in which it is playing. And not only it will not be reproduced in the same way, but also depending on the person who is listening, the meaning of the sound could vary abysmally. In this regard, George Steiner says that identical music can inspire and articulate irreconcilable proposals, and gives as an example a melody by Beethoven that inspired equally the communist promise, the hymn of the United Nations and Nazi solidarity. Hence, we can create an analogy between this process of transformation that sounds undergo until they reach the final listener, with death and reincarnation. As if every time a sound message is emitted, it dies as it propagates through the air, to be reincarnated in the different meanings that the listeners imprint on it.
Based on this duality of death/reincarnation to which sound messages are subject, I propose to create a sound tzompantli of dead, broken, intervened or damaged horns. The archaeologist Raúl Barrera Rodríguez affirms that, in the tzompantli the skulls of women who died in childbirth and outstanding warriors who had died in war were placed as a reminder of their honor. Therefore, not everyone had the honor of belonging to the tzompantli and according to the Mexica cosmovision, those who had a natural death or illnesses that were not considered sacred would have to go through the 9 levels of the Mictlan (Place of the Dead) in order to free their soul (tonalli). This is why, in order to create the auditory tzompantli, I will sacrifice an ensemble of horns that I will take to the limit of their capacities, with the purpose of making a bank of sounds that will allow me to make a sonorous composition varied in dynamic and timbre nuances to create a compositional structure of 9 parts, making reference to the 9 levels of Mictlán, which the horns will have to go through to be worthy of belonging to this auditory tzompantli.
The Huey Tzompantli (Great Tzompantli) found in 2017 in the archaeological zone of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City has revealed as main structure until today 3 rows of skulls estimated to be 36 meters long x 5 meters high; Looking to stick to that frame shape, I will create 9 panels with 3 horns each, to make reference to the 9 levels of Mictlan; Resulting in an arrangement of 27 independent speakers in total, which will help the structure of the sound composition to also have a spatial structure, in this way it will be possible to represent each of the levels of Mictlan with different arrangements of specialization of the speakers.
Based on this duality of death/reincarnation to which sound messages are subject, I propose to create a sound tzompantli of dead, broken, intervened or damaged horns. The archaeologist Raúl Barrera Rodríguez affirms that, in the tzompantli the skulls of women who died in childbirth and outstanding warriors who had died in war were placed as a reminder of their honor. Therefore, not everyone had the honor of belonging to the tzompantli and according to the Mexica cosmovision, those who had a natural death or illnesses that were not considered sacred would have to go through the 9 levels of the Mictlan (Place of the Dead) in order to free their soul (tonalli). This is why, in order to create the auditory tzompantli, I will sacrifice an ensemble of horns that I will take to the limit of their capacities, with the purpose of making a bank of sounds that will allow me to make a sonorous composition varied in dynamic and timbre nuances to create a compositional structure of 9 parts, making reference to the 9 levels of Mictlán, which the horns will have to go through to be worthy of belonging to this auditory tzompantli.
The Huey Tzompantli (Great Tzompantli) found in 2017 in the archaeological zone of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City has revealed as main structure until today 3 rows of skulls estimated to be 36 meters long x 5 meters high; Looking to stick to that frame shape, I will create 9 panels with 3 horns each, to make reference to the 9 levels of Mictlan; Resulting in an arrangement of 27 independent speakers in total, which will help the structure of the sound composition to also have a spatial structure, in this way it will be possible to represent each of the levels of Mictlan with different arrangements of specialization of the speakers.
Renders
Project status
I am currently collaborating with a craftsman to create the stands while I finish the amplification tests
and define the speakers that the piece will contain.
and define the speakers that the piece will contain.