CROSS PATTERNS: PATHS TO BE ABLE TO RETURN

Interactive multimedia installation

Cross Patterns: Paths to be able to return is an interactive multimedia installation that examines how ethnographic interpretations circulate, acquire authority, and become incorporated into cultural practices.

The project takes as its point of departure a theory formulated in the early 1980s concerning Kené, the intricate geometric designs created by the Shipibo-Konibo people of the Peruvian Amazon.

The theory proposed that these designs had once constituted a codified system of meaning: patterns could be sung, while songs could be perceived visually. According to this interpretation, knowledge of the correspondence between sound and design had been lost by most members of the community and preserved only by shamans (Gebhart-Sayer 1985). Although this account was presented as the description of an existing tradition, subsequent research suggested that the idea of “singable designs” had emerged through anthropological interpretation rather than from an established Shipibo-Konibo practice (Brabec de Mori and Mori Silvano de Brabec 2009; Brabec de Mori 2012).

As the theory circulated through ethnographic writing, cultural representation, and tourism, however, it began to be incorporated into practices presented and perceived as traditional. Cross Patterns approaches this process not as a simple opposition between truth and fiction, but as an instance in which interpretation participates in producing the reality it claims to document.

The installation performs this logic of translation through a custom-built system combining mechanical and digital media. Following recordings of Shipibo-Konibo songs as a score, a motorized machine draws geometric patterns onto textile. Visitors intervene through their voices, altering the movement and development of the drawing. The resulting patterns are subsequently interpreted as a score and translated back into electronic sound.

Rather than validating the theory, Cross Patterns examines how acts of translation produce the correspondences they appear merely to reveal. Sound becomes pattern, is altered through participation and inscribed onto textile, before being translated back into sound.

REFERENCES
Gebhart-Sayer, Angelika. “The Geometric Designs of the Shipibo-Conibo in Ritual Context.” Journal of Latin American Lore, vol. 11, no. 2, 1985, pp. 143–175.
Brabec de Mori, Bernd, and Laida Mori Silvano de Brabec. “La corona de la inspiración: Los diseños geométricos de los Shipibo-Konibo y sus relaciones con cosmovisión y música.” INDIANA, vol. 26, 2009, pp. 105–134. https://doi.org/10.18441/ind.v26i0.105-134
Brabec de Mori, Bernd. “Song Patterns and Sung Designs: The Invention of Tradition among Amazonian Indians as a Response to Researchers’ Inquiries.” In Musical Traditions: Discovery, Inquiry, Interpretation and Application, edited by Pál Richter, HAS Research Centre for the Humanities, 2012, pp. 266–280.

Developed at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, France, 2015.
In collaboration with Association Shane and Metalu.net (France). With the support of Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes, Fondo Formación Becas y Pasantías, FONDART (Chile). Thanks to: Pierre Urban for the sound and research support (Association Shane / Sound from “A l’ecoute du people Shipibo: Chants et traditions d’Amazonie”)

CROSS PATTERNS at PANORAMA 17 — Techniquement Douce, Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains, 2015 

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Photo credits: Centre d’art contemporain L’arTsenal, David Ayoun

CROSS PATTERNS at Medienwerkstatt Vienna 2017

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Its presentation in the 2017 exhibition Personal Structures – Open Borders in Venice was made possible through the generous support of DIRAC (Chile), FONDART (Chile), and Wien Kultur (Austria), with sponsorship from ARTEL (Chile) and CO Galería (Chile).