The color white was a space for experimentation for a multitude of sensitive artists, not only in terms of texture, but also as a spiritual exercise, a meeting zone for emotions. In this imaginary list we can think of Kazimir Maléwitsch, Hélio Oiticica or Adriana Lestido in their visual practices, or of an endless number of poets who have transcended the palette in the primal, in the fog, in the void. Alan Courtis (Buenos Aires, 1972), founding member of the music group Reynols, researcher and sound artist, proposes an approach to white based on an unusual invitation.
In 2009 he came to Svalbard, Norway, to take part in a festival in the most remote inhabited archipelago of the Arctic Circle. The feeling of strangeness expands not only around the constant snow, but also the adaptability of the body, which does not give up despite the icy ordeal. In a caravan Scooter You reach Pyramids in Russia, a journey that is something like a sound laboratory.
Ten years later, Courtis recreates the diary-like exercise, a photo-accompanied record that describes eight days of the Scandinavian winter and the difficulties that come with making music in this context. Fictional exercises give it a magnetic level that goes beyond physical challenges. The book blends in with the sound of the ruins, which seems to be overshadowed by the white of the snow. This is how he tells it: “The abandoned cantina invites you to visit with its colorful staircases and an arctic mural made of tiny tiles (…) The screams of a hundred angry Soviets demanding more vodka must float somewhere like the soundtrack of a film that is no longer running.”
Polar noise
From Alan Courtis
Mansalva
64, pages, $24,000
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