‘Out of Field’: Free training program in sound art brings together artists from all over Chile | Arts and Culture

The Urdimbre Foundation is behind the free and unprecedented training programme ‘Fuera de campo’. The initiative is aimed at artists and musicians interested in exploring and experimenting with soundscapes, technological music, sound sculpture, experimental luthiery, sound installation and the use of artificial intelligence in sound.

“Sound art is a practice that is constantly changing due to technological advances and the emergence of digital technology. However, in Chile there is a lack of spaces to reflect on interdisciplinary artistic practices that use sound as the main means of expression,” commented the Fuera de Campo initiative of Fundación Urdimbre.

Fuera de Campo fills this gap with a call for interdisciplinary artists who have sound as the central axis of their work. Participants will have access to a series of theoretical and practical tools to contribute to the development of their research and artistic creation processes, so that they can open new paths that allow them to transfigure the limits of traditional sound and musical structure.

Off-field

Directed by Diego Véliz, the Fundación Urdimbre seeks to make a major contribution to the national art scene by offering training programs that focus on the different branches of contemporary art, with the aim of opening windows through which to discover and analyze what is being done in the international artistic sphere, thereby promoting access to advanced, unpublished and inspiring content.

“We seek to be a refuge, where artists from all over Chile can stop and find new reasons to continue creating. Without a doubt, a long-term task, but essential for the
development of this unique place in the world,” they highlight.

Fuera de Campo is a project funded by MINCAP through the Fund for the Promotion of National Music, 2024 call.

A new space for study and creation

“Out of Field is a term used in photography and cinema to define what is outside the frame of the image. It is that which does not enter the frame, which needs to be (re)created from the
imagination to be able to exist. It is what is there, but it cannot be seen. The Urdimbre Foundation takes up this idea to create a training line where sound will be the protagonist. Although at first glance, it could
It may seem paradoxical to resort to a concept of visuality to think about sound, however, off-screen also contains what can be perceived through listening. Therefore, we wanted to
“revalue this place and turn it into a new space for study and creation,” reflects Véliz.

“Our desire is to expand the creative possibilities of those who give life to the national sound ecosystem, through the development of an advanced, free and unprecedented educational program in Chile.
All this will be possible thanks to the delivery of theoretical and practical inputs and the analysis of different branches of sound art, in order to deploy a mapping of what has been done and is being done.
international level”.

Fuera de Campo is a 2-month virtual training course, certified by Fundación Urdimbre and taught by 4 renowned teachers from Spain, Mexico and Argentina.

Art, sound and intermedia

Sound art is an interdisciplinary artistic practice that uses sound as its main means of expression. Some of its most common forms are sound installation, sound sculpture, sound and visual poetry, sound performances or intermediate works. with the presence of sound. In this context, Manuel Rocha Iturbide (Mexico), PhD in Sciences and Technologies of the Arts from the University of Paris VIII, will carry out a historical review of what sound art is, not only in the Anglo-Saxon and European world, but also in Latin American countries where different perspectives have emerged. The origin and development of the different manifestations of sound art will be explored through the review of works that will be accompanied by
images, video, audio and texts.

Sound and its context of meaning

In recent decades, sound art has gained prominence in both the art and music worlds, claiming its own territory. Professor Dr. Nicolás Varchausky (Argentina), PhD in the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS-University of Washington), will explore in this module the installation as one of the most used formats in sound art, proposing to study the different strategies of use of space such as the idea of ​​a specific site, aural architecture, sound in relation to its context of meaning, intervention, appropriation, resignification and occupation. In turn, a listening exercise will be proposed for appreciate and recognize domestic aurality as a possible way to perceive the listening of spaces.

Sound sculpture as an interdisciplinary practice

Sound sculpture represents a field of interdisciplinary activity that has grown enormously since the beginning of the 20th century, forming an integral part of sound art and dialoguing with the most
advanced and experimental. This phenomenon is manifested in the transition from the paradigm of the museum exhibition piece to the very notion of installation, the creation of environments and site-specific proposals.

Granted

Martí Ruiz i Carulla (Spain), PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, ​​will conduct a tour that identifies sculpture, experimental instruments and installations, both automated and interactive. This module will also explore the links between form, matter and action, and how these relationships determine the morphological qualities of sound.
Finally, the relationship between scientific knowledge and creativity will be studied. To this end, the Baschet applied acoustics system will be presented, which will allow understanding the behaviour of all types of sound objects and putting into practice exploration activities with domestic resources.

Artificial intelligence and sound: the Audiostellar case

Interest in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in different areas related to art is on the rise. Although there is a particular focus on the generation of images, different applications that work with sound have been appearing in recent years. In this sense, AudioStellar is a groundbreaking program. It is a sampler that uses AI to generate a 2D point map from a folder of audio files. The sounds included in the map can be reproduced in novel ways, impossible with traditional DAWs, samplers, or even custom code.

Mg. Leandro Garber (Argentina), artist and data scientist, will review the basics of unsupervised AI, focusing on dimensionality reduction, clustering, and intuitions about how
a chain of processes works. The main features that AudioStellar software offers for live performances, design, installations and sound objects will also be discovered. This
includes the creation of sound maps, the use of parameterizable autonomous agents, rhythmic constellations, MIDI and OSC to communicate with external software and hardware. Therefore, each
Each participant will be able to generate their own sound map with AudioStellar, using field recordings or audio files so that each artist can relate it to their process and poetics.

Convocation

The call for applications will run from August 5 to September 13. It is aimed at sound artists and related musicians. Sound landscapers, artists whose practice is linked to poetry, performance, installation or sound sculpture, radio artists, experimental luthiers, electroacoustic musicians and/or those related to sound art, artists from other humanistic and scientific disciplines interested in the creative use of sound, people linked to the generation of algorithms by AI, among others, may apply.

More information at www.fundacionurdimbre.cl