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IBERWAVE
A series of programs for Kunstradio devoted to Iberoamerican Radio Art

Curator’s Statement
by José Iges

There is no doubt that Latin America constitutes one of the regions in the world with a greater wealth of natural resources and potential for economic development. Latin American societies are characterized both by great inequality and enormous creativity.

Amidst this plural context, the works that make up this series, most of which have never been broadcasted by European radio stations, nor for that matter Spanish or Portuguese ones, were born. This selection has its roots in RESONANTES, 1st Iberoamerican Sound Art Meeting on Radio, which I curated together with Perla Olivia Rodriguez at the Fonoteca Nacional de Mexico in October 2012. RESONANTES has been a very effective tool for the exchange of and mutual familiarization with proposals between artists and producers from these countries.

It should be noted that the first forum operating as a meeting point for Ibero-American radioartists is the  Radio of Mexico Biennale, founded and directed by Lidia Camacho. Camacho created a Radioart contest and since 2000 she has encouraged a further internationalization of the Biennale, mainly by establishing an active relationship with members of the EBU/Ars Acustica group.

The works have been selected according to their interest and quality, as well as their ability to illustrate the work of groups and production centers, trends or communities. The practice of radioart still doesn't have a long standing in these countries. Broadly speaking, the most common genre is radiodrama, while other more experimental genres are beginning to emerge, in some countries more than in others, through events, public radios (mainly belonging to Universities) or web radios. For this reason, it is not uncommon to come across works bearing some radiophonic features and aspirations which have not been broadcast yet.

From the start, certain common threads stood out, which have served to define each of the five programs.
The social sound landscape has in turn produced two strands: the Soundscape (highly colorful and rich, featuring the diverse spoken accents as one of the main elements) and the Socio-political Landscape, an aspect that has triggered and helped develop several works.
Yet another theme is that of artistic References / Translations on which some works depend: the more frequent ones include poetry, narrative and the Visual Arts. 

The section Convergences in the Electronic Space encompasses very different works, characterized by more formal abstraction and experimentation or, alternatively, by collective works simultaneously created by artists from various countries through the use of different electronic communication networks; those experiences expand the traditional concept of radio as belonging to the media, and thus encompass the notion of network participation.

RESONOSER is the umbrella name for the works that resulted from this initiative, which belongs to RESONANTES, a project in which sound and radio artists were invited to participate in a collective creation experience, which essentially consisted in sharing recordings obtained throughout different geographic coordinates and were then turned into multiple versions or mixes.

The selection includes authors from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico and Spain. We should add that the Spanish and Portuguese pieces were, in any case, the result of processes developed within Latin American projects and/or linked to the culture of those countries.

Most of the works were created between 2009 and 2013; some of them are presented as a World Premiere.