The sounds of Jamapa

For the last 8 years Tania Ximena has been in contact with the Jamapa Glacier located in the Pico de Orizaba. Throughout these years she has created pictorial, sculptural and audiovisual works, and is currently in the post-production stage of a film. In Tania's different works and projects, I have had the opportunity to be a constant collaborator, recording sounds, creating music and doing sound design together with a small network of sound collaborators.


Throughout the years of this research, we have also captured the aural expression of the Jamapa glacier.

                                    the dripping and gurgling, the air and the sonorous void

From the glacier a drop is released,

                                                  which flows down its river,
 
                                                                                            and flows into the sea.

These recordings are part of an extensive library that follows the process of deglaciation until it flows into the sea. A suspension in time of the last breaths of the glacier. An antenna, to make this disappearing territory manifest in posterity.

We had the opportunity to record in different seasons of the year and with very diverse sound equipment, from portable recorders, geophones, hydrophones, to m/s or ambisonics techniques. Processing these sounds and with some guest musicians, I have been able to create a music that amalgamates with this landscape, seeking to establish another form of contact with the glacier.

The sound event, just as the Jamapa Glacier melts in the memory,
An instant of that fade out is amplified in the future.

From the beginning, we were looking for that listening that amplifies, that resurrects, that gives permanence.
That tree falling before our future ears.

---

River of river

Deep listening of the melting process of a fragment of the Jamapa glacier
and its subsequent humidification; in order to extend the geographic,
but above all, temporal limities of a territory in extinction.

In collaboration with: Tania Ximena (artist), Juan Pablo Villegas (artist),
Guillermo Ontiveros (glaciologist), Javier Cortés (mountaineer).

Work presented at the Ex Teresa museum as part of the activities of the TONO festival.

---

Fog river

Structured improvisation with the process that Jamapa glacier
undergoes from the beginning of its deglaciation until it flows into the sea.

Silence
first there is wind
then drops fall
streams are formed
and bigger rivers
Finally,
         the sea

Performers
Don Malfon - Sax
Rolando Hernandez - Percusiones
Carlos Edelmiro - Sampling

Performed at the Ex Teresa museum during the night of museums.