The Liberation of Meaning, 2014 | Sound Installation | Source: 53 Poems by Mario Benedetti

From the CD El Amor, Las Mujeres y La Vida | Dimensions variable Continuous running | Materials: Mac Mini, 2 speakers, custom software | Edition of 3 + A/P

The Liberation of Meaning is a sound installation that utilizes the literary works of Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti as its primary source material, creating a dynamic sonic landscape that evolves with each play through. Richard Garet employs 53 recordings of Benedetti's poems, each recited in the poet's own voice, which are then fragmented by isolating words or short snippets from the original texts. From these fragments, Garet generates hundreds of edited derivatives, organized within a computer folder for generative configuration. During playback, the audio tracks are randomly selected and algorithmically assembled, disrupting the compositional syntax and poetic structure of Benedetti's poems. This process introduces an element of chance, resulting in a unique structural outcome with every iteration. In doing so, the fragmented presentation of Benedetti's text highlights the fluidity of language and challenges traditional notions of meaning and subjectivity. Visitors to the installation are immersed in a sustained phonetic playback, interweaving Benedetti's voice with subtle oral sounds and unique speech gestures. This sonic environment encourages listeners to explore the nuances of the poet's delivery, emphasizing the timber of his voice and the idiosyncratic qualities of his speech. Moreover, visitors are invited to interpret the newly established relational structures of the fragmented text, deriving personal meaning from their individual listening experiences. As the piece plays indefinitely, it never repeats the same arrangement, offering a continuous exploration of sound, language, and interpretation.

 ABOUT

Richard Garet is a contemporary multimedia artist born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1972. He holds an MFA from Bard College, NY. Garet has lived and worked in the United States since 1996. He explores the ontological relationship between the materials he uses, such as background noise activations, image and sound generative processes, and experiments applied to obsolete and current technological media utilities that emulate everyday situations resulting in abstractions. For Garet, these conceptual and experimental creations embody the perception of contemporary life as a filtered and sensory experience.

Richard Garetís work has been awarded nationally and internationally by institutions such as South Florida Cultural Consortium, FL; Prix Ars Electronica, Linz; Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay; CIFO Grants & Commissions Program, FL; The Clocktower, NYC; Foundation of Contemporary Arts, NYC; Issue Project Room, NYC; New York State Council of the Arts, NYC; and Taliesin West, The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Recent projects include Perpetual Motion, Curated by Barbara London, PAMMTV, Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL; South Florida Cultural Consortium, Hollywood Art Center, Hollywood, FL; Media Under Dystopia Wisper Edition: A Public XR Metaverse, MUD Foundation, FL; PORTALS, Solo Exhibition, Alex Slato Gallery, Miami, FL; TranshemisfÈrico, Gurvich Museum of Art, Montevideo, Uruguay; Beyond the Sounds of Silence, Lowe Art Museum of The University of Miami, Miami, FL; Revealing, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami, FL; Plural Domains, Selected Works From CIFO Collection, Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL; Interstitial Spaces, CTM 2020, KQB Kunstraum, Berlin, Germany; Apocalypse at Nicola Pedana Gallery, Caserta, Italy; Four Horsemen, MAKER Fair, Rome, Italy; Primitivo, Casa Hoffman, Bogota, Colombia; The Festival of the Image, Manizales, Colombia; CIFO Grants & Commissions Program Exhibition 2017, Florida, USA; RED-Splice, Fridman Gallery, NYC; SOUND ONE, Cindy Rucker, NYC; Periscope, Zipper Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Screen Memory, Galerie Burster, Berlin; Midnight Moment, site specific work created for the electronic billboards of Times Square, NY; Alusiones, Carmen Araujo Arte, Hacienda de la Trinidad, Caracas, Venezuela; Meta-residue: Input Material, Space, Studio 10, NY; Theorem: You Simply Destroy the Image I Always Had of Myself, Man· Contemporary, NJ; Adrenalina, Red Bull Station, Sau Paulo, Brazil; International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Cartagena, Colombia; Bioderivas, Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre, Tenerife, Spain; Queens International, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York; Soundings: a Contemporary Score, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Extraneous to the Message, Julian Navarro Projects, NY; The Spacious Now and the Scale of the Instantaneous, Studio 10, NY; 5x5 Real Unreal, Museum of Art Acarigua-Araure, Venezuela; EAC: Espacio de Arte Contempor·neo, Montevideo, Uruguay; Fine Arts Museum of Montreal; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain; Art Museum of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and El Museo del Barrio, NYC. His material sound compositions have been published through sound art labels such as 23five, And-Oar, Non Visual Objects, Winds Measure Recordings, Unframed Recordings, Con-V, Leerraum, White_Line Editions, OBS, Line Imprint, and Contour Editions.

More info: info@richardgaret.com

@garet_ny

RICHARD GARET ON VIEW AT MUD FOUNDATION

MUD 5.0: Miami Art Week Program

350 NE 75th St, Miami, FL 33138

12/04/2024, 10:00 pm at MUD Foundation Venue

The Sound of Art

Launching MUD’s New Sound Art and Experimental Music Program

Curated by José Hernández Sánchez
Artists: Tolga Yayalar, Phivos-Angelos Kollias, Itzá García, Richard Garet, José Hernández Sánchez

MUD Foundation is thrilled to announce the launch of The Sound of Art, an innovative initiative in sound art, experimental music, and technology. As part of MUD’s 5.0 Art Week Program, The Sound of Art will introduce immersive audio experiences that push the boundaries of musical composition and spatial sound design.

This program will feature compositions by invited sound artists and composers using MUD’s 8.1 multichannel audio system installed in the venue. These immersive musical works will explore the dynamic possibilities of sound distribution within physical space, offering audiences an enveloping auditory experience.

Digital Twins and XR Integration

In parallel, these compositions will have digital twins or adaptations available on MUD’s XR platform. Fully accessible on the web, this virtual sound room allows audiences to move through the space and interact with the compositions from different angles, offering a new dimension of engagement with sound art. The virtual sound room will remain open for future works, allowing composers to showcase both duplicates of their physical installations and entirely new creations using any number of sound sources and configurations.

Featured Work: Door Chime by José Hernández Sánchez

This unique musical composition activates each time the entrance door of The MUD Foundation opens, seamlessly integrating art with everyday interactions.

The Sound of Art not only celebrates the intersection of sound, music, and technology but also creates new opportunities for artists to explore the frontiers of spatial sound, whether in physical reality or the virtual world. Join us at MUD to experience this exciting new phase in sound art!