PRODUCTION CREDITS

Sound installation: Pedro Alcalde
Architect: Iván Pomés
Graphic design: Claudia van der Kraan
Exhibition: Joan Maragall – La palabra iluminada

Venue: Palau Moja Barcelona / Biblioteca Nacional Madrid
Date: 13th April – 10th July 2011 / 21st September – 13th November 2011

BACKGROUND
A sound installation that imagines the room of Catalan poet Joan Maragall (1860-1910) as part of the exhibition “The Enlightened Word”, included within the activities commemorating the centenary of the poet’s death.

TITLE
The title comes straight from Virginia Woolf’s novel: Jacob’s Room. Woolf’s book is a character study where the central figure exists primarily as a collection of memories and feelings of those around him.

MUSIC
In 1953, as requested by Le Corbusier, Xenakis organized a “spatialized” concert on the terrace of the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, closing the ninth edition of the CIAM (Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne). Three different styles of music sounded simultaneously from three locations on the terrace: concrete music, oriental folk music, and live jazz. This was probably the first intervention by Xenakis in the world of music. I have always enjoyed imagining the jangle those notable architects heard while sipping their farewell cocktails. For this project, the experiment involved transposing the idea into the framework of a sound installation for an exhibition on a poet. Thus, a combination of four different sound sources would try to compensate for the absence of the celebrated character with a sound description of his room.

SOUND PALETTE
projected from different sources:
1- Voice
2- Voices
3- Music (Schubert)
4- Sounds

MEDIUM
Audio-DVD

DURATION
Loop

VOICES
1. Voice: Joan Maragall (Jordi Brau)
2. Voices: Josep Soler (Toni Estigarraga), Anton Roure (Xavier Serrano), Víctor Català (Marta Colomer), Josep Pijoan David Brau), Clara Noble (Carla Torres), Eugeni d’Ors (Xavier Serrano), Elena Maragall Noble (Carla Torres), Carles Rahola (Toni Estigarraga)