In 2006 I presented in Switzerland as part of my exhibition VERTIDOS my work Requiem for 2 Basuróphonos, an audiovisual installation for which I had built two string instruments and composed the music. Nobody asked me why to build instruments or write music, if I’m not a musician or luthier. probably because the final result was a visual work, something I had always done.

Years later I decided to work on something with no image as result. Something people would not expect from me. Something I knew I was not prepared to do. I decide then to compose a piece of music to be performed by an orchestra with instruments built by myself; questioning what we expect from people. Why the first thing we ask when we first meet someone is what do you do, which is your profession, unconsciously establishing filters for our relation’s environment?

        I built the instruments in an unexpected way, questioning also the way we expect things to be, not only the people. I choose to be inspired by the masterpiece of someone I consider to be one of the greatest contemporary composers, Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. In fact I dedicate the work to him, but the work is not the music, nor the instruments, but the fact that I do something I’m not expected to do.

        As in Reich’s composition, pulse and breathing allude to time and life. The concert begins with a stethoscope with a built in microphone in my chest and my heart beats sounding live on the speakers, making metronome in the initial part of the work, which is divided into eight sections: pulse, breathing, growth, torment, chaos, harmony, breathing and pulse; drawing an endless circle across being alive, growing and the torment caused by the feeling that growth generates even more questions.

        music for 18 things is full of significant elements in my life along the last decades. My expectations, my frustrations and achievements on what I have been doing, what I do and what I still want to do; questioning what we are, with more and more questions each second.

 

Transcribed from the conference held in Italy on February 7, 2010 when Luiz Simoes was invited by Artphilein Foundation to introduce his projects Music for 18 things and Viola-Me to other artists and philosophers participating in the event Il Corpo Violato.

 

 

 

 


Basuróphonos Basso, Mezzo and da Gamba

 

 


Tubóphonos Basso and Barítono

 

 


The Crappychord

 

 


Maracalata

 

 


Violoca

 

 


The voice

 

 


Vidriaphono

 

 


Tormentophone

 

 


The wheel - A magnetic head reads the recording of a tape fixed on the perimeter of the wheel

 

 


My heart - stethoscope with a built in microphone

 

 


Rehearsal in studio and fragments of the premiere in Italy

 

 

Premiere at Teatro Espace. Italy, June 2010

 

 

International Museums Day at ARTIUM Museum. Basque country, May 2011

 

 

Recording session. Auditori La Fontana. Barcelona, June 2011

 

 

Fundación Miró, Barcelona, 2019