The Tremulous Mother
L´AlmudĂ, Valencia, 1997
The AlmudĂn, an old granary in the city of Valencia, is occupied by two cones of grain—one in a slightly elevated platform, the other under it. A pulpit of sorts, accessible to the public to look at the ensemble from above, has been built around the columns. In the central nave, there is a bed whose mattress base is pleated with strips of lead, snow shoes, part of a canoe, a pair of chairs and a large container from which sand pours. Hanging above each one of those objects is a strip of lead with a word, which does not coincide with the object below it: “TEMPESTAD”, “FIEBRE”, “MONTAĂ‘A”. Some big black tear-shaped sacks hang from the ceiling. Scattered throughout the space we see some perforated vessels that have lost part of the sand they contain through a series of holes, creating rhythmic figures within. The two side naves exhibit Chladni Plates, some black boxes covered with glass sheets with a layer of fine sand on top. Loudspeakers placed inside the boxes emit sounds that create a vibration in the glass and figures in the sand on the surface, the “Chladni figures” named after the German physicist who gave them a mathematical definition.
A space to display the dissociation of things and words and the most striking fact of all: that sound makes matter vibrate.