Voice, Time and Space. The Presence of the Sound Element and its Inscription in the Work of Artist Esther Ferrer

Abstract

In the work of artist Esther Ferrer (San Sebastian, 1937), sound material plays a fundamental role as a network of space-time relationships and an intersubjective phenomenon. Although Esther Ferrer has never considered herself a musician or a sound artist, sound, rhythm, space, time, the vocal body and the physical body, writing and listening, in all their variations, are key elements through which it is possible to approach her practice and thought. The artistic condition of the sound phenomenon is intimately linked to the way of inscribing and organizing time and space in a specific situation. The sound devices (mostly participatory and procedural) and discursive procedures that participate in the experimentation of the medium structure the action, amplifying and multiplying its sensory and perceptive possibilities. The works presented in this article, Al ritmo del tiempo (1992) and two participatory performances, La coral del miedo (2016) and Concierto zaj para 30 o 60 voces (2010), share the voice as a common axis: a relational and procedural phenomenon, the voice arises from a set of sound materialities that affect each other and forge the experience of a spatial, temporal and sensory situation. Always open to participation, Esther Ferrer favors the multiplication and intensification of the performative action through the incorporation of off-screen elements that contribute their own eventuality, thus broadening the points of enunciation and the listening points of the medium.