Unruh(e)

Artist’s notes:

I am interested in the character of a particular space through physical phenomena and electricity-induced movement, vibration and interference. I’m also investigating the concept of memory: the way we imprint and collect experiences and reorder them to create ever evolving narratives.

Instead of extracting the sound from the source to a recorder, I physically manipulated the vinyl records, cutting them up and had tape affixed patterns to create textural rhythms. I also attached different devices to interfere with the movement of the needle on the groove of the record. I created 5 layers of vinyl with 10 multiple tone arms picking up the encoded groove on the cut up-altered vinyl creating dense sound structures, looping, rumbling rhythms and multilayered disjointed pulses and layers of sounds.

I have been using vinyl records in the last 35 years. Back when I was 10 years old, I would tinker with my father’s turntable. I would play his records and pull it back and forth, making short stabs and scratch sounds that would eventually evolve into using the internal phono switch to make awkward transform scratches.

My father helped me build some of the components of this installation, and it’s quite a great addition to the energy of the work. I will be using some records that my dad used to play which had an impact on how I like percussion-based music. Erwin is also putting in a list from his dad’s music archive from when he was younger.

This installation is a machine for processing these memories. It’s a vessel for collecting/remixing them in tactile form: specifically vinyl containing music from the past century. I sort different records and manipulate/truncate select parts, by cutting them or by affixing materials to interfere directly with their surfaces.

In effect, physically destroying them.

One might even call this method ‘Cut Throat’ sound: characterized by sudden cuts of juxtaposition with sparsity.

If anything, this isn’t so far removed to how history, both collective and personal, has been written/rewritten or remembered.

Arvin Nogueras (b. 1977, Manila), alternatively known as Caliph8, sees his work in a continuum. A pioneer in Manila graffiti and hip hop scenes/mutations since the 1990s, he crosses and merges disciplines in his art practice, creating visual works, sound pieces, installation, and performances. More often, integrating them. Remaining resistant to boundaries, he creates hybrids, tactile reorderings of collective memory.