Sound Artifacts

Technology allowed music to become a universal expression, especially in the second half of the 20th century. The vinyl record first, and then the emergence of cassettes and boomboxes, served to consolidate the democratization of listening and the personalization of recordings. Synthesizers were also essential in that contemporary revolution. A few decades ago, a part of our identity was built upon sound artifacts that would define what we are or have been. Today, the world is different. Music no longer has corporeality, it has become something intangible; in the 21st century, it has taken another direction as a driver of young people's concerns. The project that Eduardo Balanza (Murcia, 1971) presents at DA2 proposes a reflection on analog archaeology and the physical aspects of objects linked to popular music, the kind we internalize without realizing it, ultimately determining the soundtrack of our lives. We are experiencing the end of an era and the mutation of a paradigm that particularly affects the identity of adolescents. If before music allowed for the creation of an independent space of one's own, now thought is controlled by algorithms and the industry; everything seems more homogenized. If musical changes are closely linked to social transformations and the visual culture of each moment, delving into this recent past means trying to understand what is happening in the present.