Architecture of Friendship

Architecture of Friendship

Santiago Latorre (ES), Sara Paniagua (ES), Nieves Arilla (ES)

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Concert

“The Architecture of Friendship” is a collective project inspired by the notion of ecosystem and the value of interdependence, led by the Spanish composer/engineer Santiago Latorre. The group takes its name from the words of Hannah Arendt, who after being accused of lack of love for the Jews, responded: „You are quite right. I don’t love any people – neither the French nor the North American nor the Jewish nor the Blacks. I love only my friends.“ The project began as an exploration of real-time vocal manipulations. After being away from music-making for several years due to an injury in both arms, Latorre started experimenting with contactless movement sensors to modify the sound of his voice, looking to regain the feeling of playing an instrument. This first exploration grew and shifted through collaborations with artists and friends within the ecosystem of the Sound Laboratory at the Etopia Center for Art and Technology in Zaragoza. American composer Colin Self, Colombian artist Carlos María Romero, and Spanish singer Nieves Arilla came together to produce the “Architecture of Friendship” music album. The sequence of songs is offered as a hinge on which to activate and exercise empathy, awaken hope and recharge enthusiasm, perhaps even encouraging care between the familiar and odd. For this performance, in collaboration with Spanish choreographer Sara Paniagua, the artists developed a prototype of a technology for using sound and movement to control lights on stage. 

Santiago Latorre: Is an artist and engineer interested in how the organic and the living participate in, and can affect, all the phases of a sound object, from conception to perception. This fascination is apparent in his projects, including the “Sonification of the Human Genome”, the private performance “A Pie De Cama”, which consists of a collection of a capella songs sung directly into the ears of people lying in bed, and in his two solo albums “Órbita” (Accretions, 2008) and “Eclíptica” (Foehn Records, 2011). He has worked on various dance, art, fashion and film projects presented in spaces such as Tate Modern (London), Quanta Arts Foundation (Taipei) and Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona). In 2012, he composed the music for the film “Interior. Leather Bar”, co-directed by James Franco and Travis Mathews. Latorre curates FUGA in Zaragoza, Spain, an artist in residency program, as well as an exhibition platform and educational content incubator that fosters a community by interconnecting artists, creatives and collectives who use sound as their tool.

Sara Paniagua: Is a choreographer, performer and lighting designer. She considerss dance as an active agent for resignification; for the transformation of the generic, the inconsequential, the residual into energetic performative processes of body consciousness. Paniagua often works around situations of hybridisation, juxtaposition, combination, decontextualisation, and the questioning of the idea of time. She collaborates with artists and institutions in Latin America and lives in the Basque Country, where she has collaborated in various research projects on artistic practices relating to the body since 1998.

Nieves Arilla. Is a singer and composer. For more than 15 years, she made vocal contributions to records and concerts of Spanish artists such as Javier Álvarez, Pablo Guerrero, Diego Vasallo or Jabier Muguruza. With Javier Álvares, she was part of the cabaret project Las Maris and the pop song group Facunda. She has also composed music for audiovisual projects, installations and short films by Amanda Pola, Yann-Loïc Lambert and Pilar Gutiérrez, among others. At present, she keeps active the “A Pie De Cama” project active, together with Santiago Latorre.