The «VdO Gene»: Angel or Elf in Today's Music

Abstract

José Val del Omar (Granada, 1904-Madrid, 1982) may be one of the most influential figures in contemporary Spanish audiovisual creation and, at the same time, one of the most ignored. In this article, I will follow a qualitative analysis methodology applied to a series of semi-directed interviews held mainly in the autumn of 2021, and through them, I intend to draw the trace of Val del Omar's thought, creation and reception of his sound and visual work in the Spanish experimental audiovisual scene, embodied in figures such as María Cañas, Los Voluble, Salud López, Juan Carlos Quindós, Erik Urano or Llorenç Barber, among others. In this article I will not describe the figure of the filmmaker from Granada, but I will use the words given by the artists to outline a sort of current, collective, multiform and polyhedral portrait through which to understand or at least approach what I have called «VdO gene», that is, the genetic mark of Val del Omar in today's audiovisual and strictly musical scene. With this, I also intend to make visible, and from a critical point of view, the need for a genealogical research that considers as a conceptual horizon what is known as counter-memory.