El Sonido Es Mi Brújula

May 8, 2025

·

In this bilingual comic, young Chilean sound artist Mauricio Lopéz F. invites us to explore labor and housing practices through sound, kinetics, and new technologies. Some of his work will be exhibited at Comfort Station from June 7-29, 2025.

Image: An illustration shows a person with their back to us leaning into a sculpture of a building in search of sound. Mixed media image as part of a comic gif by Carlos Matallana.

GIF: A black and white illustration of Mauricio Lopez F pondering with a hand on his chin and the name of this bilingual comic series is in the bottom left corner: el sonido es mi brújula graduate exhibition 2025 @ SAIC Galleries. The following text flashes in sequence: My name is Mauricio López F. This piece, like most of my work starts from an experience , an interaction, that generates an idea. Then I ask myself, What materials do I need to represent this idea? What knowledge do I need to gain? Very rarely do I start from fascination with technology. To be honest, that comes later.

GIF: A black and white illustration of a sculpture by Mauricio López F with the following text appearing in black: when we were looking for a place to live (I'm here with my wife), we came across this old building and it was absolutely noisy. Ironically I came to study an MFA in sound. We began to hear what our neighbors on every floor were doing. We learned to know our neighbors' habits before we knew their faces. When walking, we avoid the floorboards that creak the least, aware of the noise we were making.

GIF: A color photograph of a sculpture of a building is overlayed with the following text written in black texts inside quote bubbles: So I made this structure and I added sound to it. If you feel it moving, it's because the structure is indeed being activated by sound.

It has a physical value, the steps that were entering this structure sound absolutely differently from those in the recording, so the materiality is also contributing to it.

From my apartment, I recorded the whole house and created a library of all the house noises. A Leitmotif of the building, so to speak.

Once I had all the audios, I wanted to find material to portray how sound travels through the walls.

GIF: A color photograph of a sculpture of a building is edited with the following text written in black text inside a quote bubble on top: I worked on the top of the piece for six months, the base took four months. The base obeys other conceptual reasons. The origin of materials is something that amuses me greatly; it was used to catalog stones.

GIF: While completing the base, I didn't have the money to buy the four legs. I made a base that works better than having the neatness of the four legs. It took me a bit to achieve that relationship of space, to reflect a structure rather centered on itself and its various complexities. 60625 (2024) 24' x 24' x 75.5' 12 Minutes. Materials: Recordings of an inhabited apartment, speakers, card catalog drawers. stool, steel, pipes, and steel sheet.

GIF: A photograph of the artwork exhibited at SAIC has an overlay of Tio and his non-gendered nephew illustrated over it with a text bubble that reads: One of the first connections when I arrived was the language.
I generally saw the people who spoke spanish in work zones and one starts to wonder, why?
I started investigating precarious work situations.
Migrants, ultimately are the ones who build up a country like this, and they have to expose themselves out of necessity.
Those working areas that are supposed to protect them, in the end, are super unstable.
they speak of random limits, they speak of hierarchy, they speak of those that are exposed first.
I used two strategies, the first is to use color that goes against functionality
and movement; a traffic cone shouldn't move. This zone, in a way, is always being altered.

GIF: A black and white image of a traffic cone with short standing next to Tio illustrated at the top with the following text: KREEK! Is it moving or not? There's an invitation to stay and observe these cones that are in a way doing their job.
There's no sound in the cones; There's sound as a consequence of their movement. The fortuitous sound drags you in.
Each cone contains different materials-wood, metal, glass, and concrete-and different ways of activating the space.
Each one has its own personality. Some are more energetic and some find it harder to do their job.
The weight of something being lifted, the dragging, reminds us of the will to go to work everyday.

Tambien tienes que venir mañana (2025)

GIF: An image of illustrated tio and his non gendered nephews conversing after experiencing the exhibition: I really like the pragmatism of bare objects, their function shifting reveals our precariousness in our routines.

Una metáfora poderosa, la intervención del espacio con dispositivos de "seguridad" crean una sensación de inestabilidad, peligro, y reflexion social.

Nos obligan a interactuar con ellos.

El artista logra transmitir un mensaje profundo sobre el la precariedad laboral y la vulnerabilidad de los trabajadores migrantes.

Esos conos trasladan la inseguridad laboral de este espacio.

Si, esos movimientos impredecibles generan caos.

A true chilean anarchitect...

Carlos Matallana Portrait made by his teenage children Marcela and Samuel Matallana, 2021.

About the artist: Carlos Matallana’s (He/Him) illustration tool is ink/pen on paper, He relies on high contrast and its expressionism qualities. Like an anonymous quiet observant, he prefers to illustrate his characters from the back. He enjoys illustrating full body characters standing or in movement, revealing attitudes and feelings through posture or even clothing instead of facial expressions. He published the graphic novel Brea https://manualofviolence.org/ in 2018. Instagram @tropipunk