THREE CHANNELS TO BE PLAYED SIMULTANEOUSLY
Anfisbena
(Póstuma) (2024)
Medium:
Sound performance, multichannel video, poetry
Materials
Steel, citric acid, cloth, poems, prepared amplifier, electronics
Dimensions
Variable
Description Anfisbena (Póstuma) is the third iteration of a series by Peruvian sound artist Cristóbal García Belmont. In this version, the artist engages in the process of de-aestheticization of the sculptural series through two performances.
The first performance occurred at the Distillery Gallery in Boston in 2023, where the artist erased all material traces of the sculptural instruments titled Anfisbena after months of reverberation, public interaction, and performances. This erasure of visual traces mirrors the sonic reverberations that had long since left the material.
The second performance was held at Ginsberg + Tzu in Madrid in 2024 and involved a 3-channel video created from the first performance. The artist played back looping sections of a poem, recalling the material and sonic traces lost in the first performance and attempting to re-enact them. He did this by generating intricate feedback loops through a prepared guitar amplifier while a sound-reactive video – live-processed and overloaded – accentuated the visual remnants of the first performance through image saturation.
The work explores themes of duration, disappearance, and transformation within the artistic process.