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Sergio Avello
((( VOLUMEN ))) ( " VOLUME" ). MALBA Esplanade. Buenos Aires, Argentina. November 2006 to March 2008.
Giant urban vumeter, an aesthetic indicator of the ambient sound, in real time.
Presentation and context of ((( VOLUME )))
By Erika Escoda
"The reasonable man adapts
himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world
to himself. Therefore all progress depends on unrassonable man." (George B. Shaw)
Argentine
Sergio Avello is part of
a new trend of artists who conceive art work in interaction with the environment.
Bringing together light, sound, technology, concept, public places, society, and
new media, they generate an artistic and social happening (Art
in Situ,
Site
Specific Art,
Environmental Art,
Public Art,
Art in Public Places,
Architectural Intervention).
These new forms of art are also endorsing the move towards
intelligent cities.
On the invitation of
MALBA - Colección
Constantini, Avello created his 7 - meter - high piece Volumen, a giant urban
vumeter, in operation since December 2006 in the open air on the Museum's
esplanade.
Inspired in the city of Buenos Aires, Volumen is an aesthetic indicator of
ambient sound, wich translates audio data into light, in real time. It indicates
the intensity of the sound it captures, with colored light, making the invisible
visible:
Green indicates normal. acceptable sound. Well-being. The possibility of moving
forward.
Yellow indicates tolerable, intense sound. A call to attention. A warning.
Red indicates loud, unpleasant sound. It bothers. It encourages reducing the
intensity.
"Predicting the future is easy. What is difficult is to know what is
happening now."
Volumen is instant environmental information; a marker of environmental quality
standards, indispensable to preserve our biological capital.
Light and sound are internal sensations stimulated by environmental vibration.
When a body is knocked or rubbed, the molecules that conform it move rapidly, i.
e., they vibrate, and these vibrations, transmitted through the air, reach the
ear in sound waves that propagate, producing successive condensation and
rarefaction of the air itself in a straight line (sound ray).
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers 50 decibels (dB) as the desirable
ceiling, sounds exceeding 70 dB are unpleasant, and if they go beyond 90 dB they
become harmful. A standard conversation is 30 dB. According to the WHO, Buenos
Aires is the
noisiest city in Latin
America, though since 2004, the city has passed
legislation to control
sound pollution.
"Do not leave for tomorrow what yesterday you left for today."
It is human beings who are
responsible for
environmental pollution, who only think of our own importance as "encapsulated"
individuals and of our inmediate circle. Self-centeredness is not self-love; it
comes from an inner void that need to be constantly filled. Self-centered
behavior turns a deaf ear to his contaminating effects: carbon dioxide emissions,
strident sounds and visual effects, all types of waste, even toxic and in large
quantities.
Quality life depends on our decisions, decisions depend on knowledge, and
knowledge depends on perception. Intellectual capital.
It is important understand the tolerance limits of our health, understand that
loud sounds and noises harm, our auditory cells, irritete and tense our state of
mind, causing unpleasant states which depreciate our emotional capital.
"If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end somewhere else." (Laurence
J. Peter)
The most important thing to anyone is how that person feels, and we always want
to feel good. Even thoughts affects us because they create feelings. According
to
Macedonio Fernandez, to
be is to feel. Therefore, either we improve the general conditions or we will
become ever more insensitive. Insensitivity that ward off pain also numbs
enjoyment. And let's not forget that sensitivity also warns us of any danger. If
we choose not to feel, we are depriving ourselves of being.
"The conscience is like an unspecific immunological reply. There is no
evolutionary limit that indicates how much conscience a species may acquire. And
there is no end to the degree of advantage of adaptation that the gaining of
conscience may confer on an individual or the species." (Terence McKenna)
Persons or things do not exist without an environment. We all share biological,
family, social, economic, and cultural systems.
We integrate and are responsible parties in the interactive network of life, and
each one may
act one's own level -without making excuses for
the lack of activity or negligence of others- encouraging and increasing what is
good. Social identity is an element of an individual identity, Identity is a
self-concept, an imaginary representation, determined and changeable of
something deep and immeasurable: it is creative freedom.
Creativity is there at all times and in every place seeking to manifest itself.
Sergio Avello's Volumen may be considered a work of art of international scale,
and as such, it is defined in is excellence of form, in a love for creativity
and the beauty of life itself.
