PoéticaSonora: Prototyping in Montreal a Digital Audio Repository for Latin American Sound Art and Poetry

This poster and lightning talk will introduce PoéticaSonora (http://poeticasonora.mx), an international research group developed by professors and students from Concordia University (Montreal) and UNAM (Mexico City) seeking to question the primacy of textual dimension in art and literature by addressing the legibility of sound, the nexus between sound and inscription, and the evasiveness of voice in print and other writing systems. It seeks to archive, preserve, and disseminate works by Latin American sound artists and poets in digital audio format (mainly in Spanish, but not limited to this language), as well as to facilitate the study of these authors and trends. Founded in 2016, it operates under two complementary axes, preservation and activation. While many academic and artistic events are hosted throughout the year, mainly in Mexico City, fieldwork and archival research is regularly conducted to gather audio files for our main project, the Digital Audio Repository for Sound Art and Sound Poetry (DARLA, work-in-progress name https://poeticasonora.me/searchhome). Its prototype was created by the Montreal research team, hosted by Hexagram, using an initial sample of 317 audio tracks, performed or composed by around 180 artists. During the project’s first phases, the Mexico City research team, hosted by Laboratorio de Literaturas Extendidas y Otras Materialidades, has coordinated undergraduate students to editorialize tracks donated by private collectors and public institutions. This focus on Mexico City’s archives and collections is mainly due to logistical reasons, as most professors and students affiliated to the project study or work at UNAM's campus in that city.

(Source: ELO 2018 Conference: Lightning Talks: PoéticaSonora: Prototyping in Montreal a Digital Audio Repository for Latin American Sound Art and Poetry)