Storm in Ten Parts
2024 / Nancarrow House & Studio, Mexico City / Video and intervention into Conlon Nancarrow’s piano / Composer: Dario Acuña Fuentes-Berain / Curator Joseph Del Pesco / Peana
Storm In Ten Parts / Tormenta en Diez Partes is a site-based video, installation and experimental sound work made in collaboration with Mexican composer and sound artist Dario Afb. It was exhibited and performed within the late experimental composer Conlon Nancarrow’s home and studio in Mexico City. We were invited by curator Joseph Del Pesco to contribute a meaningful group of objects that would be put to work by Dario to create a unique sound work that would be performed live, as well as installed in the space.
We assembled a collection of objects commonly used by Foley artists to create the varied sounds of a storm for TV, movies and stage. These objects included a box of rocks, a tape measure, a watering can, bamboo canes, plastic ferns, magnetic tape, and a cloth bag of rice starch, among other things. Dario AFB used these objects to prepare the late Conlon Nancarrow’s historic piano in his Mexico City studio, then composed a new work on this altered instrument (below).
The objects themselves were displayed on the shelves in the studio. They were also protagonists in a silent video that documents their activation as storm-sound producers against the beautiful backdrop of Nancarrow’s home and studio (above).
This project was supported in part by an emergency grant from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The Foundation For Contemporary Arts was co-founded by John Cage, often considered the inventor of the prepared piano. The project was organized by Peana Gallery, Mexico City.
