sexta-feira, 1 de março de 2013

metrometro




METROMETRO
[CD VARIZ 2002]

Site specific for the underground stations
Supported by MC/IAC Ministério da Cultura - Instituto de Arte Contemporanea Lisboa 2002

In the end of 90's I asked myself why metro stations in Lisbon, as many others in Europe, were using only
this kind of "elevator music"... why public spaces were still imposing this obsolete
sound ambiences based on Muzak from the 1950's? Everyday people stayed inside a tunnel with this background music full of
covers and versions of Supertramp, U2 or Michael Jackson... Not today anymore
but one day in 2000 I decided to stay at the platform listening this for 30 minutes and while the trains passed
how would be this place with a new kind of sounds or music languages? How to propose other ambiences to this diary flux of people?
How great would be
if the Sound Art starts cohabite this particular public space with sculptures, draws and paintings?
So "Metrometro" starts as a site-specific idea, a collective "sound specific" work. The title points to the "metronom"
a sound device that gives a regular counter of tempo and rhythm pulse. A collective project to find better solutions for the propose
to have debate and tuned with the central idea of public space, not only about urban flows but also as a conceptual parallelism
with group as a stronger flow of ideas a debate of individual experiences and sensorial mechanisms
to construct a better immersive experience of sound in public spaces. For the same reason artists from different creative
fields as visual arts, architecture and performance were invited and not only from music or specifically sound art.

Artists:
Pedro Cabral Santo, Miguel Soares, Fernando José Pereira, Gustavo Sumpta
António Caramelo, Carlos Roque, João Simões, Manuel Mota, Rui Viana.



Metrometro provides an oblinque glimpse at the wealth of electronic music making in Lisbon. Funded, as these things
tend to be, by the Portuguese Ministério da Cultura and Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, the project inveted musicians
and multimedia artists to compose “functional music” for playback on Lisbon’s underground stations.
It’s unclear whether the concept ever made it further then here, but this fantastic idea ought to be implemented in
subway systems around the world. It’s anyone’s guess what commuters would make of the ultra-abstract digital twitches
offered up by some contributors – “Vent” by The Producers being a case of point.
Other offerings are more obviously relevant to the schema – “Drop” by Pedro Cabral Santo, offers electroacoustic trickles
and plops which could have transformed a platform into a stalactite-fastooned subterranean cavern, while “Magnolia” by
Twokindermen is built on the kind of restlessly repetitious cello motif that animates Steve Reiche’s Different Trains. All told
it’s a refreshing alternative to the hackneyed crowdpleasers that buskers routinely inflict on must underground travellers.”

Chris Sharp at WIRE magazine (issue 239 January 2004 / Rewind 2003)