In this introductory class, we comprehended what we are most interested in and contextualised that among a perspective of professional futures. These “futures” are academic, professional, and creative.
The tutor Dawn Scarfe started by asking simple questions – What’s your name?; What do you do?: I answered that I’m professionalised to do sound for film, but I broadly engage with other areas of sound design. For instance, I do sound design for audiovisuals, sound documentaries and found object performances. One of the questions I later came up with was – How can I promote myself if I have many artistic profiles? In the case of film, having your official name as your credited name was standardised. However, my artist’s name is Raul Tabu. In the tutor’s view, it would be best to have different profiles—Raul A. Ramos as a sound for film designer and Raul Tabu as a multidisciplinary sound artist.
Exercise 1 – Introductions
- Name
- What is the medium (form, material)?
- Where do you share it? (gallery, label, theatre)
- Three keywords (what does it do or feel like?)
Profile 1
- Raul A. Ramos
- Film director, sound designer
- Film Festivals, Youtube
- synchretic, acousmatic, verosimil
Profile 2
- Raul Tabu
- Multidisciplinary Sound Artist, Audio Director
- Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Youtube, Instagram
- Sensory, Sight-specific, Socially-engaged
Exercise 2 – Wider Contexts
Describe as briefly as possible (ideally, one sentence for each question).
- Why do I make art? What are my interests?
A.: For me, making art is a way of expressing my experience in the world. With an artistic perspective, I deconstruct life and share those interpretations with others. I become closer to the core of complex things by exploring audible and oral histories, sound design, and field recording.
- Why do I work with my particular medium or material?
A.: I started working on sound for film when I was 18, and it shifted to broaden the sound design capabilities and qualities onto different mediums. Every sound transmits emotional impressions, and I want to bring awareness of that and integrate it into a spectrum of rhetorical and fictionised storytelling and understanding of social and natural spaces and environments.
- What themes or patterns emerge from the work?
A.: Storytelling, documentary, diaristic, observational, socially engaged, sonic awareness, aesthetical qualities.
- Is my work influenced or inspired by anything/anyone?
A.: Lucrecia Martel, Lionel Marchetti, Toshyia Tsunoda, Sofia Saldanha, Félix Blume, Dziga Vertov, Pierre Schaeffer.
- Why is my work different to the artists?
Lucrecia Martel: She is an Argentinian film director, and her way of telling stories has sound on the pedestal. Articles have shown that her style is entirely focused on the textural characteristics of voice and acousmatic sounds that give the moving image a powerful connotation. As an audio director, I remove the image but rely on Lucrecia’s teachings of textures.
Lionel Marchetti: He is a french musique concrète composer that uses many sonic sources (experimental analogue devices with various microphones, feedback, radio waves, magnetic tape recorder, modified speakers, and analogue synthesisers), and his approach is merely aesthetical. One of my all-time favourite pieces is Portrait d’un glacier (Alpes – 2173 m) / 1998 ~ composition de musique concrète, where Marchetti uses field recordings of an expedition to Mare du Glace and combines them as a composition. I try to bring storytelling to my designs compared to Marchetti’s approach. Marchetti’s abstract and aesthetical work also doesn’t seem as accessible as my approach.
Toshyia Tsunoda: Tsunoda is a Japanese artist who works as a sound source with inert matter. His field recordings are enjoyable to the hearing. Field recordings are part of my method of working.
- What is the most critical thing I want to explore/communicate through my work?
I want to tell stories through sound, field recordings, through experimental sound practices.
Exercise 3 – Draft Your statement
2-3 sentences outlining your approach. Include the following elements when describing your work: What is it? Where is it? What does it do? How? Why?
Raul Tabu is a sound artist and designer interested in the capabilities of sound as a storytelling agent and a way of expanding its sensorial experience. Raul works between sound for film, sound for video art, musique concrete, found object performances, audio documentaries, and field recording. He has worked in films such as Entre las Rocas (2022; short film; Spanish production) by Jesús F. Cruz, Ménades (2023; feature film; Spanish production) by Gabriela Alonso Martínez, and The River Woman (2023; short film; British and Portuguese co-production) and also solo projects such as Falsa Memoria (2021), No muevas, Escucha (2022), Porta Metálica (2022). In his projects, Raul invites the listener to connect the audition to other senses and its aural materiality among audiovisual arts or audio.
Optional: find an image or graphic that could be displayed alongside your statement.
This is something I still have to work on. I will try to find photographers and friends that could help with this.
These are what I have so far:
