SHH013CD // HELEN MIRRA AND ERNST KAREL // MAPS OF PARALLELS 41ºN AND 49ºN by shhpuma records

Helen Mirra doesn’t bring the kind of easy-conceptualism often characteristic of contemporary visual and sound art to the table. Her creations are in contrast with the practices and configurations established in an artistic field known for its experimental focus, but also tending to turn forms and methods into patterns.
The collaboration with Ernst Karel documented here – a map of the latitudes delineating the geographical area where the European - North American history of deforestation and resforestation has played out – seems something that we could file under the subgenre Acoustic Ecology, as defined by Murray Schafer. Truth is we can’t: all the sounds suggest they were produced by nature, but their origins are entirely artificial and they function in a representative, parabolic way, by means of noise generators, a rewind film crank (without the film), a bass guitar and a guitar.
If a map is the representation of a topographic reality in a minor scale, that virtual condition is even more enhanced with these resources. And when we are convinced that music is something else than what we get here, music emerges, with a subtle, but strong effect, with micro and macro dimensions. Appearances trick us; we know that, but we always forget it.
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Personnel
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HELEN MIRRA AND ERNST KAREL
land: guitar
railroad: 16mm film
rewind crank
deep water: bass guitar
winds: analog noise
generator and filters
rivers: silences