Conference: “Plural Contemporaneities” by Paz Guevara (HKW, Berlin).
“Listening and Plurifocality”, a session dedicated to Llorenç Barber as part of the exhibition Llorenç Barber. Arxiu d’escoltes and the #IVAM35 program. Held on 9 February 2024 at the IVAM Centre Julio González.
The work of sound artist Llorenç Barber challenges the conventional definition of the contemporary, which is often limited to works or processes produced “in our time.” Barber also questions the denial embedded in this linear concept of the “contemporary,” which relegates transhistorical, hybrid, or indeterminate aesthetic positions to the past. Drawing on his plural conception of the contemporary, both in practice and theory, this conference explored dialogues with postcolonial thought.
How do Barber’s bell concerts open up multiple perspectives and contemporary languages? How does his notion of “plurifocality” create horizontal spatial strategies for listening in public spaces? To what extent does his work encourage understanding of the epistemological value, resistance, and plurality of knowledge inherent to the multiple worlds we inhabit? Speculating within an intergenerational network of expanded plural contemporaneities, the conference delved into Barber’s work while establishing connections with the listening and sound practices of new generations.
Paz Guevara (born in Santiago, Chile) is Curator of Exhibition Practices at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, and a professor in the DT. Raumstrategien (Spatial Strategies) program at Weißensee Kunsthochschule, Berlin, Germany. She curated the exhibition of composer and artist Satch Hoyt, Afro-Sonic Mapping. Tracing Aural Histories via Sonic Transmigrations (HKW, 2019) and co-edited the eponymous book (Archive Books, 2022). Recently, she was part of the curatorial team for HKW’s reopening exhibition O Quilombismo: Of Resisting and Insisting. Of Flight as Fight. Of Other Democratic Egalitarian Political Philosophies (2023).
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