Interference~balloon is an audio piece made for Earlid’s annual Liminal Sounds under the theme of Retreat, Disappearance. The work unfolds in three acts and is recorded in one take, exploring the balloon/breath as a low-tech noise-canceling tool. The sounds are recorded through a contact microphone placed inside a balloon. First, one can hear the balloon being inflated and the tunning of different radio stations. The song Take My Breath Away (1986) from the band Berlin is being broadcast on one of the stations, spurring the release of my breath from the mouth of the balloon. The song is interrupted by commercials and station ads, and the sound of the air release is used to cancel the airwaves and the pull from the atmosphere of commercial interest and capital.
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“Liminal Sounds and its motif of retreat and disappearance: what arrives is the proximity of ghosted towns and birds, imagined dissipation of entities lurking in and out of real life, the canceling signals crossed and masked, anticipation of vaporized languages, words stuck inside mouths.” Joan Schuman
Carlo Patrão