Caller of the Winds is a spatial sound work, composed using sound recordings created collaboratively with members of the Wichí community of Santa Victoria Este II, in north Argentina.

The composition draws on a series of phonographies made collaboratively with Mawó Mendoza, which developed out of a series of conversations and games around sound and listening carried out in the monte (the characteristic scrubland of the Gran Chaco savannah, upon which the Wichí and other indigenous peoples of the area depend for food, materials and medicines). Alluding to the analogies of sound, wind and the breath, Caller of the Winds culminates in the performance of delicately carved wooden instrument (widely known in the West as a bullroarer), which is employed ritually in Wichí traditions to call the four winds into conference in times of drought. The composition is built from documentary materials recorded in the Gran Chaco, interwoven with the sounds of winds digitally synthesised from the performance of a mouth-harp by Chorote shaman, Artín Bravo.

A selection of recordings produced in 2016 with Mawó Mendoza:

Themes:

Sound and listening; ecologies; acoustic communication; inter-species communication; precarious communities and ecosystems.

Background:

Caller of the Winds is spatial sound composition developed from materials and ideas generated during The Creature in Between (2016), a pilot artistic project in Santa Victoria Este, Salta (Argentina), at the heart of an indigenous Wichí community and in partnership with Centro Cultural Tewok, a civil association for the conservation and sharing of the Wichí people’s cosmovision. The project featured the participation of visiting artists Claudia Fontes (sculpture), Elba Bairon (sculpture), Guadalupe Miles (photography), Mateo Carabajal (musician, hacker) and myself, sharing creative processes during ten days with local artists from the Wichí community in Santa Victoria II, most of them members of the Mendoza family, founders and caretakers of Centro Cultural Tewok: Isabel and Veri Ruarte, and Juan Mawó, Oscar Titzil, Tjunaj, Pona, Carina, and Leonel Mendoza, amongst others.

Santa Victoria Este sits very close to the triple border of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, an area embedded in the Gran Chaco ecosystem, the second biggest ecosystem in South America. This ecosystem is threatened by unsustainable agriculture (principally soya and cattle) and mining, with the deforestation caused by these practices impacting on local fauna, and contributing to flooding of the landscapes occupied by indigenous communities.

Read more about The Creature in Between here.
And further thoughts about some of the ideas underpinning Caller of the Winds in this blog post.

Caller of the Winds was first performed at Vibrational Worldings (Songs of Entanglement) at Cafe OTO (London), as part of EnCOUnTERs / Music and Other Living Creatures.

Technical details:

Title: Caller of the Winds
Medium: Sound
Duration: 21 mins
Date of production: 2023
Format: 7-channel audio.

Credits:

Original recordings produced collaboratively with Mawó Mendoza and members of the community of Santa Victoria Este II. Organised by the Appreciation Society and supported by Centro Cultural Tewok, Arts Collaboratory, Arts Council England, British Council Argentina, Secretariat de Cultura de Salta.

Composition supported by Soundfjord as part of EnCOUnTERs.
Special thanks to Claudia Fontes, Guadalupe Miles and Helen Frosi.