alchan-Looking Outwards 04

Chelpa Ferro is a multimedia art group whose work primarily revolves around sound, in one form or another. One of their installations, Acusma (2008), combines recorded sound and traditional Brazilian pottery spread throughout a space. Though I wasn’t able to find much information on the actual process behind the work, the sounds used in the work appear to have been originally recorded, then manipulated by an algorithm to play back with various modifications or repetitions. The result is a chorus of sounds that are voice-like, but is just removed enough to be not quite just a group of human voices.

I really appreciate the juxtaposition between this process and the other main part of the work, traditionally made pottery. This combination of new and old, as well as that of the sounds themselves coming from such unexpected places, also seem to be typical of how the artists are trying to explore sound—making both the sources of sounds and the sounds themselves unfamiliar to the viewers/ listeners.