Vis.[un]necessary force_4

Participatory multimedia installation.
Active loudspeakers, sound card, microcomputer, Smarti Pi Touch 2, Pure data patch, digital sounds.
Dimensions: variable.
Duration, three sections:
I 3 min 18 s
II 3 min 00 s
III 3 min 06 s

With deep appreciation to Mirna Medina, founder of Rastreadoras de El Fuerte and to all members of Rastreadoras in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico, who are searching for their relatives, victims of forced disappearance

Vis.[un]necessary force_4 (V.[u]nf_4) introduces the activities of Las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte [Trackers from El Fuerte]. Rastreadoras—constituted predominantly of women—search for victims of forced disappearance in the Sinaloa desert in northern Mexico. V.[u]nf_4 is structured in three sections. The main section is a multi-layered, generative, 8-channel surround sound installation. Participants turn it on/off via a digital interface installed in the centre of the exhibition space. Sounds originate from recordings the artist made during one of the expeditions of Las Rastreadoras in February 2019, digging for clandestine graves in the outskirts of Los Mochis in Mexico. The sonic layers of V.[u]nf_4 allude to different moments of this expedition. In these, the relationship that Rastreadoras establish with each other in their search for justice and truth, and their conversations, contrast with other recordings that document the metallic sound of their tools: shovels and pickaxes used to dig where human remains may be. The two questions that guide the collective's work appear in a third layer: Where? And Why? spoken by Mirna Medina during an interview granted on that same trip. The granulation method modified and intervened Medina’s words, thus integrating them into the work as indeterminate high frequencies. In a final layer, the artist integrated segments of the string sections of "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" (1960) by composer Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020) so that they give body to the various sections of V.[u]nf_4.

The remaining two sections are not on view on this exhibition. One comprises two sound stations intended to be outdoors as an extension of the artwork, and the last is composed of five steel tools or “T” rods, that Rastreadoras use to drill holes in the ground and detect the smell of organic elements before they start digging for clandestine graves.

Luz María Sánchez