on becoming amphibian

2024 | Oct 5 →  Dec 5 (Galicia, ES)
exhibition at Espacio Vilaseco
produced during a residency with Galeria Vilaseco
sound + video + printed matter

on becoming amphibian is the result of  a two-month residency and immersion in Galicia with Galería / Espacio Vilaseco (ES). Open from October 5th to December 5th (2024), the exhibition centers the Galician frog population and explores the idea of permeance as a mode of being through amphibious shapeshifting, acoustic presencing, interspecies kinship, and environmental awareness. These questions materialize through four works in dialogue with each other; the 4-channel sound and textual installation alytes, the video installation two lineations, the LP album turning porous, and the eponymous book on becoming amphibian which articulates the entire exhibtion.

alytes is a 4-channel sound and textual installation which invites visitors to tune in to the delicate calls of the midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans). The extreme closeness of the recordings offers a unique and intimate perspective of the Alytes’ prudent nocturnal mating pings as they intertwine over time into a tonal tapestry. A bewitching music of some sort that pulls listeners in an altered sense of scale until their own dimensions begin to change. This anuran soundscape is accompanied by 16 excerpts of the book on becoming amphibian which shares Diserens’ search for the Alytes and the artist’s metamorphic fate.

two lineations is a video installation made of two synchronized photographic films. Weaving 35mm photography and field recordings, the films begin in unison meandering in the Sil Canyon before encountering a dam. From there the films split and follow two different paths through the Galician landscape. One lineation is made of power lines, while the other pursues flowing waters, a face to face which reveals how these lines originating from the dam form a discreet union between the stork and frog populations.

The book on becoming amphibian is Diserens’ poetic diary which recounts their Galician sonic and non-human encounters and the search for anuran kinship as their body gently metamorphoses into a creature of the ponds. An ode to what Diserens calls permeance, a way of belonging which finds its roots in listening gestures, planetary thinking, and more-than-human shapeshifting.





Words about the exhibition by Andrea Franco (curator):

“Musician, field recordist, artist, filmmaker — the interdisciplinary work of Pablo Diserens is based on the attention, mainly through sound, to signs and presences of nature imperceptible to an anthropocentric society, and often vulnerable. By listening to these non-human life forms, the artist proposes new ways of relating to the world in which sound seeks to erase the differences between species.

Inviting Pablo Diserens as artist-in-residence at Espacio Vilaseco, responded to an intuition about the creative possibilities that the environment of Chantada and the Ribeira Sacra could offer to an artistic practice of this kind. Thus, over a period of two months, Diserens collected sonic and visual fragments of the discreet, at times inaudible, local non-human life, which they then manipulated and fused with the anthropogenic sounds of the region’s dams. As a result, a landscape of natural and technological realities materialized, celebrating the interdependence of all living beings while hinting at the impact of human endeavors.

Within the vibrant ecosystem that the artist highlights in each work of this project, frogs take on a special relevance thanks to the mesmerizing and complex richness of their calls. The fascination for these voices, nourished by numerous nocturnal encounters in total communion, led Diserens to the eventual desire to immerse themselves fully in another existence and become amphibious.

With this symbolic gesture, Diserens’ works translate their immersion in the Galician landscape based on experiencing the concepts of permeance and presence. Permeance as a fluid, versatile and permeable quality that leads to a decentering of the self, and that considers life with others rather than next to; presence as way of tuning in, connecting and merging with the pulses of the world.

The exhibition, conceived specifically for the Espacio Vilaseco, consists of a soundscape (“alytes”), an audiovisual installation (“two lineations”), and a publication (“on becoming amphibian”).

In “alytes”, Diserens plays with scale and acoustic perspective through the calls of midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans), which inhabit the nearby wetlands, allowing visitors to experience changes at a spatial, temporal and existential level, as if they shrank and were amid this amphibian concert in the intimacy of a night on the slopes of the Miño river. The 4-channel sound installation is accompanied by 16 excerpts from Diserens’ eponymous book “on becoming amphibian”.

“two lineations” is a double projection of photographic films that start in the Sil Canyon and reach a dam before splitting and following two different paths through the landscapes of the region. One lineation is made of power lines, while the other pursues flowing waters, which when brought face to face reveal how these lines form a discreet union between the stork and frog populations.

The visitor will also find the full version of “on becoming amphibian”, the artist's diary, a vivid chronicle of this two-month stay full of subtle descriptions of the Galician land- and soundscape, where between sleep and wakefulness the anura metamorphosis occurs and articulates the whole project. The record album turning porous co-published by Ediciones Vilaseco and forms of minutiae, Diserens' own record label, is also in view. The album is a meeting of amphibian and hydrographic acoustics obtained with different recording techniques. The buzz, calls and clicks of frogs, insects, bats and birds are weaved with the hums of the region’s hydroelectric power plants to form a luxuriant soundscape that invites the listener to experience that permeable quality and to discover the magnetizing music of this unique place.” 




works produced, recorded, photographed and written by Pablo (Rana) Diserens
during a two-month residency in Galicia with Espacio / Galería Vilaseco
april — july 2023

curator: Andrea Franco

stork sounds on “two lineations”: Izabela Dluzyk
river sounds on “two lineations”: Ludwig Berger & Pablo Diserens
editing assistance (book): Madelyn Byrd & Thom Lucero

special thanks to the frogs of Galicia, and to Andrea Franco, Miriam Vilaseco, Lola Fernández Gómez, Beatriz Pérez Pereira, Rosa Salamo Otero, Frederic Griesbaum, Mathieu Bonnafous, Diane Barbé, Mélia Roger, Thom Lucero, Heike Leidiger, Jean-Charles Massera, Francis Gomila, Corinne Diserens, and Madelyn Byrd.



interview 
Amphibious sounds and melting glaciers - tuning in with Pablo Diserens — Through Sounds