About RondHangen ReCords ReCuerdas

bartaku & sofiesaufage gathered atoms, digital & mental bits during and after 350 days of wandering through Latin America, from Ushuaia (the End of the World) till Mexico (hyper)City. ReCords is a multimedia installation that attempts to evoke this multi-sensory experience using a database of sounds, texts, images, memories and emotions 'controlled' by Pre-Colombian and 21st-century ICT, media & electronics.

The origins
The origins of ReCords can be found in the Southern Bolivian Andes where we came across the Khipu: a textile laptop consisting of a construction of coloured cords with knots. These knotted cords appeared to be a highly advanced information tool and a key component in the information system of the Inkas. These devices contain binary coded, quantitative (census data, crops,...) and qualitative information (sentences, songs, myths...), crucial for the Inka rulers.

Old & new ICT We decided to explore this tactile storage device & medium and explore if and how we could combine/integrate it with contemporary ICT & architecture, electronics and media.The underlying dynamic process that leads to the state of sharpened sense perception consists of the organic, intuition-based, emotional, spontaneous, free, non-linear, conscious on the one hand, and the structured, rational, linear, controlled, manipulated, unconscious on the other. At the same time, the concept of binarity -allegedly the key to Inka IT- is integrated in the structuring, encoding and presentation of the content. Tangible, audible, visible The installation integrates images and sound recordings. The former were mainly provided by Sofie, the latter by bartaku; they represent memories/emotions of both or either one of them. Moreover, these materials are classified geographically into 11 'geoclusters' (11 places in Latin America), each cluster containing two categories of information: non-specific and impulse-driven images / sounds / memories, on the one hand, and anecdotal materials retrieved on a more intentional basis, on the other. Encoded & randomized The images are presented on three screens and randomly generated by customized open source software (Mersenne Random Generator). The sound files are audible via 11 speakers integrated in 11 separate textile threads, generated by 11 Mp3 Players in random mode. They 'invite' people to touch the threads hereby getting acces to the encoded, 'made tangible', memories. Space for content The content space is a trapezium-shaped tent representing the trajectory travelled in Latin America. Entering the installation, every visitor becomes an active user to the extent that he/she will be able to weave his/her own story, to create his/her own path or camino, submerged in this non-linear presentation of symbolic and non-symbolic content. PRESS REVIEW http://recuerdas.blogspot.com/2005/04/records-at-mtissages-art-textile.html REFERENCES ANNUNZIATA, M.G. La Ciencia y Tecnologia Incaica. 2001, Gutemberg Editores y Impresores, S.L. 80p. ASCHER, Marcia and Robert. Mathematics of the Incas. Code of the Quipu. Dover Publications, Inc. Mineola, New York. 166p. BAKKER, J.H. Toewijding. Over literatuur, mens en media. Uitg. Atlas, Amsterdam/Antwerpen. 368p. BEY, Hakim. Overcoming Tourism. Musée Lilim, Carcasonne. www.hermetic.com/bey/tourism.html CRANG, M., CRANG, P., MAY, J. Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations (Sussex Studies in Culture and Communications). Routledge London & New York. 322p. LANCHO, M.F. Escritura Incaica. 2001, Universidad Nacional F. Villareal, Lima. 112p. PLANT, Sadie. Zeros + Ones, Digital Women + The New Technoculture. 1997, Bantam Dell Pub Group, S.L., 305p. URTON, Gary. Sign of the Inka Khipu. Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records. 2003, University of Texas Press, Austin. 202p. The Khipu Database Project: http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/KhipuConst.html

Finished Threads

Dry Tail

A subsidiary cord that refers to our dwellings throughout the Patagonian desert. One of the stories it contains, refers to a night in a tent near Baja Caracoles, a very tiny settlement - a total of 21 buildings, lost in the Patagonian pampa, literally in the middle of nowhere. Many wild horses and sofiesaufage's imagination on the loose...

(Spec.: Geocluster 2, Patagonia; Subsidiary Cord; Recto; S-plied; bartaku&sofiesaufage-code; Material: mixed fabric: natural: Alpacawool, ponytail hair, non-organic: parts of small bag used underway.)

More...

Content Space

These images show the development of the production of the content space.. It's design is based on the visual representation of the path that bartaku and sofiesaufage created whilst wandering throughout Latin America.

1st drawings


final technical drawing - metal structure; back, side and top view of the content space (tent)



content space

Work in progress Belgium

thread production at Z33











content space production at DNA, Antwerp

ReCuerdas Trajectory

This is the visual representation of the path that bartaku and sofiesaufage created whilst wandering throughout Latin America.

Upper left is the starting point: Santiago de Chile. Top right is Mexico City, the point of return to Belgium. The design of the content space (tent) has been based on this shape.

Pre-production in Chinchero, Peru

In order to prepare the creation of our textile medium, we went to Chinchero Peru. With the help of Nilda Callañaupa, director of The Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco and the local weaving community we were able to produce 20 kilo of mainly natural dyed woolen threads of Alpaca, Lama and Sheep. Hereby we tried to stick as close as possible to our colour code, a result of encoding our mental images and stories...

The following pictures depict chronologically the thread making process with the weaving community of Chinchero, Cusco Peru.



defining colors



making cactus bug red



dying



more dying



showing of



cooking



color check



first delivery



red threads



coloring green



drying threads



coiling up threads




some balls of thread

Making textile threads with weaving community in Chinchero, Cusco, Peru

Color Code

bartaku & sofiesaufage