(˜) Tilde (´) Tilde (2019)
Sound portrait, soundscape, installation and four-channel outdoor performance
Binaural field recordings, fixed media and spatial audio
Commissioned by Miami Dade College Live Arts for En Residencia
Koubek Center, Little Havana, Miami
Premiered October 26–27, 2019
Little Havana: A Portrait (2019) | 27′46″
Complete stereo version of the voice composition, presented without the surrounding five-channel soundscape.
THE WORK
(˜) Tilde (´) Tilde grew out of a ten-month residency in Little Havana. During that time, I explored the neighborhood and met people through activities I organized and through projects developed by the residency’s theater, film and dance artists.
I wore in-ear binaural microphones and recorded everyday situations as they unfolded, sometimes continuously for an entire day. Although some recordings came from Domino Park, restaurants and organized community activities, much of the material was gathered inside the homes of people I already knew. I did not conduct interviews or direct the conversations. I recorded what happened.
I call the work (˜) Tilde, (´) Tilde, placing two marks from written Spanish side by side in honor of the Cuban exclamation we learn almost the moment we arrive in Miami.
The project developed into two related forms: a portrait made primarily from voices and a soundscape made from the audible life surrounding them.
LITTLE HAVANA: A PORTRAIT
The portrait is defined through accent, distinctive vocalizations, speech rhythms, laughter, phrases and fragments of anecdotes—mostly in Spanish. These voices locate the work within a community shaped strongly by migration, without attempting to construct an oral history or explain the neighborhood through interviews.
I created several noise melodies from the large collection of recorded voices before selecting the material used in the finished work. One sequence made entirely from laughter later became the fixed-media part of a piano composition titled Cocktail Hour in Little Havana. In that work, pitches heard within the recorded voices were transcribed for piano and synchronized with the recording.
The outdoor presentation of Little Havana: A Portrait was a solo four-channel performance in the Koubek Center courtyard. Working in a manner related to Frozen Music, I combined and spatialized laughter, conversations and occasional sounds from the surrounding city.
LITTLE HAVANA: A SOUNDSCAPE
The soundscape gathered audible signs that help locate the listener in—or suggest entry into and departure from—Little Havana: roosters, drawbridges, a distinctive nocturnal cricket call and other sounds of the neighborhood.
Inside the Koubek Center’s darkened ArtSpace, visual and media artist Freddy Jouwayed designed and built a house-like structure from wooden frames covered with translucent scrim. Visitors could enter the structure. Three speakers inside it carried speech, conversations, laughter and voice melodies, while five additional speakers distributed around the room surrounded the house with sounds of the city.
Freddy’s moving images presented places, objects and details characteristic of Little Havana without relying on its most obvious visual symbols. The projections passed across the translucent architecture and extended into the surrounding room and its mirrored wall.
The voice and city-sound layers played as long loops of different durations. Their changing relationships prevented the installation from settling into a single fixed sequence. It operated continuously during the weekend presentation, while the courtyard performances occurred at scheduled times.
PRESENTATION
October 26–27, 2019
En Residencia: Little Havana Unmasked
(˜) Tilde (´) Tilde: A Portrait and a Soundscape of Little Havana
Koubek Center, Little Havana, Miami
CREDITS
Concept, field recordings, sound compositions and performance: Gustavo Matamoros
Installation architecture, moving images and projections: Freddy Jouwayed
Project identity and featured graphic: Claudia Ariano, Ariano Design Studio
Installation photograph: Freddy Jouwayed