Recording the wind
intuitions, narratives and poetical practices in Patagonian realities
What carries the wind that is offered to us for listening? Is it possible to map and archive the flow of wind in voiceless communities? In the vast and diverse territory of Patagonia – understood as not just one, but multiple Patagonias – silence emerges as a faint trace, with its archive appearing as nothing more than a blue speck on the horizon.
Archivo de lo audible cuevas de los paredones
In the present collaboration curated by Max Bober, we present a fragment of the archive, focusing on various narratives that require space and movement to expand potential meanings. We pause to examine the presumed and assumed meanings of the wind in our culture, exploring its ramifications and gaps.
These excerpts provide examples of different approaches to cartographic outputs and highlight our own challenges and limitations in realizing this archive.
The work surrounding the Archive of the Audible in the Patagonias: A re-territorialization of wind forces (in the original: Archivo de lo Audible en las Patagonias: Re-territorialización de la potencia del viento) may be aligned with what we term an “in-between meteorology” (Meteorología del Entre) – a search for concepts nurtured by both methodological and epistemological elements that collectively shape a poetics of new forms for constructing a sound archive.
Archivo de lo audible Leleque
We are amateur archivists of the wind’s sonority. We define this “in-between meteorology” as the intersection of various universes – the polysemy of atmospheric phenomena influenced by the wind and its relationship to listening within a complex social and political context.
wind
a geological ruin
within a climatic disaster,
the air
that stirs,
carrying memories and sound
molded by the bodies it touches.
This collaborative archive seeks to serve as an interstice for deconstructing accepted narratives and prevailing prejudices about the wind in Patagonia. These narratives are rooted in a colonial past, where the local landscape was portrayed as “virgin”, “uninhabited”, or “wasteland”. It is crucial to recall that between 1878 and 1885, the Argentinian government orchestrated the largest military campaign in its history to subjugate and eliminate indigenous populations in this region – a campaign infamously dubbed the “Conquest of the Desert”. The paradox embedded in this name – conquering a desert, a place presumed to hold “nothing” – belies the true nature of the campaign, which culminated in a genocide that laid the foundation for new economic, social, and political practices of the modern Argentinian state in relation to its territory. This process not only sought to obliterate the indigenous inhabitants but also their memory, culture, and even towns, mountains, river names. This narrative remains strong until nowadays where only attractive places for tourist economy are considered valuable (places that could remind european tourists their own Alps, Pyrenees, lakes and forests or “unique and exotic” glaciers or trekking paths). In contrast, more unruly landscapes, like the expansive flatlands of the patagonian steppes, are dismissed as barren and unattractive, valued solely for real estate or extractive industries such as mining. A casual traveler along National Route 40 might glance out and think, “Who would dare to live here? There’s nothing here but wind.”
In 2023 the Archive published a short book/fanzine titled “To sleep with opened windows” (Dormir con las ventanas abiertas, Archivo de lo Audible de las Patagonias, Comarca Andina Paralelo 42, 2023). This publication collects various texts and drawings from different authors that together with links to the sound archive creates a collaborative artwork opening the diverse meanings, poetical practices and searches of the group.
[…] far away, in the towns of Diadema and Astra, I remember walking among the hills, searching for fossils, stones, and quartz. It always surprises me that marine animal fossils are found so high up in the hills, and that the wind blows so intensely, so strongly—sometimes even pleasantly, warmly. At some point, I believe, all those hills were under the oceans, and the ocean roared on some other shore. Today, the dry wind replaces what were once seas. Stones replace the seashells. The sound, like an overflow, like a flood. The wind carries history. The sound, as an unwritten memory. […]
Excerpt from Bober’s text “Donde suena la Memoria” (A place where Memory sounds).
The archive is a space of attentiveness and intuition, allowing us to activate our listening and explore the possibility of documenting sonic events. Could these sonic documentations, which build up the Archive, materialize our own experience? We aim not to invent, but to discover. Our pursuit is to search; our gesture, to extend a hand in this search. In this context our recordings point out to such questions: what could be the definition of wind? What can we hear in the wind? In which sounds might we find it?
Archivo de lo audible paredones de pinturas rupestres
About authors
Archivo de lo audible
Coordinated research platform by Iván Rivelli and the Proyecto Visitantes (Gabriela Hernández/Álvaro Martín) located in the Andean-Patagonian region of Argentina. Our work combines archival practice and listening to the wind, alongside aesthetic exploration devices: publications, public space interventions, and pedagogical proposals.
Social : @lo_audible_del_viento_ @ivanrivelli @proyectovisitantes
Iván Rivelli
Born in Buenos Aires in 1979. Since 2012, have resided in the Andean Region, where develops practices related to listening, phonography, and field recording. Some of his projects take the form of sound pieces, but the majority are the materialization of a broader process, such as a poetic action, a drift, or research.
Proyecto Visitantes
A conspiracy born in 2018 in the Andean Region, Chubut. A community of expanded graphic projects, editorial experiences, and extraterrestrial work in nature. Their practices are organized by artists, educators, and coordinators Gabriela Hernández (coast, 1985) and Álvaro Martín (mountains, 1984), and involve beings from different planes, dimensions, and places around the exchange of knowledge and mutual support.
Max Bober (translator, collaboration)
Maximiliano Bober born at the foot of Chenque hill, in southern west Patagonia. Finds the act of listening a central point for his artistic exploration and also how listening can create affinities and a shared place. The areas of his works connect musical composition, improvisation, soundart, literature and translation.