For the first time, MUTEK MX Festival established an alliance with Catalonia to program five multidisciplinary Catalan artists: Shoeg, Tarta Relena, Marina Herlop, Alba G.Corral & Albert Barqué-Duran. Under the label #FrenteCatalán, this participation features multimedia installations, and transdisciplinary and musical performances that merge the voice and Catalan lyrical tradition with digital media.
MUTEK MX Festival, celebrating from October 9 to 15 in Mexico City, is a key agent for artists and audiences attracted by digital culture in Latin America. It was held for the first time in 2003 and is part of an international network of festivals that emerged in Montreal in 1999 to promote digital creation in sound, music, audiovisual arts, and technology. Currently, the wide MUTEK global circuit includes editions in Mexico City, Barcelona, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, San Francisco and Dubai.
The #FrenteCatalán Program
The creative force of Alba G.Corral arrives at MUTEK MX to present a new immersive experience in the Festival’s Digi Lab from October 9 to 11 and in Quarry Studios on October 14. Lounge Morphus is formed by two elements: a large format audiovisual installation projecting the work of Sabrina Ratté, Alba G. Corral, and artists from the INTUS studio including 10 individual spaces, and a piece of furniture provided with a sensorial system that isolates external sound and generates frequencies of acoustic vibrations and electromagnetic pulsations designed to generate a fully harmonious and meditative effect between mind, body, and spirit, that will allow to enjoy these 10 spaces.
After his work Prypyat was positioned as one of the best experimental albums in 2022, composer, singer, and pianist Marina Herlop is engaged in an intense world tour and preparing the release of her fourth album Nekkuja. MUTEK means her debut in Mexico, with a performance on October 12 at the Museu Anahuacalli with her ensemble that includes the renowned vocal duo Tarta Relena.
Carlos Martorell aka Shoeg together with musician and producer Priori offers a live audiovisual driven by motion sensors and reactive environments to show the contrasts between organic and synthetic, complex and natural, tangible and hypothetical concepts. Shoeg explores the relationship between humans and technology through the use of programming and emerging technologies to cause interactions between image and sound. His work is presented on October 14 at the Quarry Studios space.
Tarta Relena has a second performance on October 14, in the same space. The duo is formed by Helena Ros and Marta Torrella who join their voices to transmute the oral tradition of the Mediterranean from an experimental sensibility, which resonates with followers of folk and classical music, as well as avid avant-garde ears. Tarta Relena reconnects us with stories and cosmogonies in different languages from the purity of sound, curiosity, and intuition.
Finally, Albert Barqué-Duran aka Albert.Data features one of the most complex and experimental performances of the festival. Since April of this year, the pièce Slowly fading into data has been presented in different formats as a film, an installation, a videogame, and a 360 dome. Using music in 8 bits, artificial intelligence, and other digital artifacts, Albert.Data creates an audiovisual and performative experience to explore concepts as extended cognition and hybrid beings. This will take place on the night of October 14, at Quarry Studios.
