Voz Alta
Relational Architecture 15
"Voz Alta" (Loud Voice) (Relational Architecture 15) is a memorial commissioned for the 40th anniversary of the student massacre in Tlatelolco, which took place on October 2nd 1968. In the piece, participants speak freely into a megaphone placed on the "Plaza de las Tres Culturas", right where the massacre took place. As the megaphone amplifies the voice, a 10kW searchlight automatically "beams" the voice as a sequence of flashes: if the voice is silent the light is off and as it gets louder so does the light's brightness. As the searchlight beam hits the top of the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, now Centro Cultural Tlatelolco, it is relayed by three additional searchlights, one pointed to the north, one to the southeast towards Zócalo Square and one to the southwest towards the Monument to the Revolution. Depending on the weather, the searchlights could be seen from a 15Km radius, quietly transmitting the voice of the participants over Mexico City. Anyone around the city could tune into 96.1FM Radio UNAM to listen in live to what the lights were saying.
When no one was participating the light on the Plaza was off but the three lights on the building played back archival recordings of survivors, interviews with intellectuals and politicians, music from 1968 and radio art pieces commissioned by Radio UNAM. In this way the memory of the event was mixed with live participation.
Thousands of people participated in this project, without censorship or moderation. Participation included statements from survivors, street poetry, shout-outs, ad hoc art performances, marriage proposals, calls for protest and more.
The piece exists as a functional prototype that is shown with video documentation. The prototype is the same Megaphone used in the public art piece, modified to incorporate a powerful xenon searchlight inside, so that when a participant speaks into it, their voice gets converted into light flashes. An FM radio transmitter allows transistor radios to hear exactly what the light is saying: be it live participation or archival material from the memorial.
Online project: www.alzado.net
Radio UNAM
Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco
Replica 21
When no one was participating the light on the Plaza was off but the three lights on the building played back archival recordings of survivors, interviews with intellectuals and politicians, music from 1968 and radio art pieces commissioned by Radio UNAM. In this way the memory of the event was mixed with live participation.
Thousands of people participated in this project, without censorship or moderation. Participation included statements from survivors, street poetry, shout-outs, ad hoc art performances, marriage proposals, calls for protest and more.
The piece exists as a functional prototype that is shown with video documentation. The prototype is the same Megaphone used in the public art piece, modified to incorporate a powerful xenon searchlight inside, so that when a participant speaks into it, their voice gets converted into light flashes. An FM radio transmitter allows transistor radios to hear exactly what the light is saying: be it live participation or archival material from the memorial.
Online project: www.alzado.net
Radio UNAM
Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco
Replica 21
General info
Year of creation:
2008
Public art
Technique:
4x10kW Xenon robotic searchlights, modified megaphone, computers, DMX distribution, live FM radio transmission
Dimensions:
The searchlights were visible over a 15km radius, the Radio UNAM FM signal could be tuned everywhere in Mexico City as well as nearby towns such as Toluca and Cuernavaca
Keywords:
Video with prototype
Technique:
1x150W Xenon light, modified megaphone, computer, live FM low power radio transmission, transistor radios, 16m 09s HD video with stereo sound
Keywords:
Edition:
3 Editions, 1 AP
Collectors:
Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation
Exhibitions
- Obra Sonora, Artis - Naples, The Baker Museum, Naples, Florida, United States, 2024 - 2025.
- Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, United States, 2021 - 2022.
- Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Presencia Inestable, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Monterrey, México, 2019 - 2020.
- Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Présence instable, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 2018.
- Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Preabsence, Haus der Elektronischen Künste Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 2016.
- Unsaid/Spoken, The Cisneros Fontanals Foundation, Miami, Florida, United States, 2012 - 2013.
- Play with me, Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles, California, United States, 2012.
- Freedom to Create, The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2011.
- Freedom to Create, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India, 2011.
- InTERvenciones, Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y de las Artes, Valparaíso, Chile, 2010.
- Atopia, CCCB, Barcelona, Spain, 2010.
- Transition States, Haunch of Venison, New York City, New York, United States, 2009.
- Recent works, Galerie Guy Bärtschi, Genève, Switzerland, 2009.
- 5 Solos, Galería OMR, Mexico City, México, 2009.
- Being in the World, The Cisneros Fontanals Foundation, Miami, Florida, United States, 2009.
- Voz Alta, Memorial for the Tlatelolco student massacre, Mexico City, México, 2008.
Credits
- Programming: Gideon May
- Hardware: Gideon May
- Production Manager for Antimodular: Gastón Ramirez Feltrín
- Production Manager for CCT: Alejandro Aguinaco
- Production Assistance: Griselda Ramírez Feltrín, Ximena Molina, Pablo Valverde, Olfa Driss, Pierre Fournier, Andrea Navarro
- Commissioned by: Centro Cultural Tlatelolco of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
Bibliography
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