Recently I came across some cassette tapes my mother recorded, spanning from a few months before my birth in 1982 to 1986. The recordings begin with fetal heartbeats and progress through episodes of crying, laughter, play, and different stages of speech development. The material interested me somewhat for its personal value, but moreso as an artifact of impromptu and performative documentation. Which is to say, there is a constant negotiation between the unpredictability of the child's behavior and the expectations which the parent projects onto the process of recording. This friction is reflected in the chaotic quality of the sounds, which move between soothing and anxious textures.
Trabalenguas is a multi-channel sound installation which uses these cassette tapes as source material to explore the processes of re-collection and self-documentation. The physical components of the installation are four 'tin can phones' strung up on the branches of a tree. Each tin can contributes sporadic bursts of sound, transforming the immediate natural environment into an unstable sonic palimpsest.
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