Biography(ies)

As a multidisciplinary artist and independent curator, Martín Rodríguez’s work emerges from his Chicanx upbringing along the Arizona-Mexico border. His practice mixes performance with interventions and installations, investigating radio as a transformative medium.

After a surgery to remove a brain tumor that left him temporarily paralyzed and physically unable to work as a musician, he was compelled to look for new meaning. One day, in a frustrated attempt to play a basic scale, Rodríguez heard mysterious voices resonating in the pickup coils of his guitar. Realizing the source was a radio transmission, he seized the opportunity arising from this phenomenon and began improvising with it. This ear-opening moment revealed the power of radio, and it quickly became his primary material for expression. Notably, his work has been presented by the Musée d’art contemporain Montréal (CA), MUAC (MX), Darling Foundry (CA), Walking Festival for Sound (UK/PL), Spektrum (DE), as well as various festivals and performance venues across Canada, and the US.

In addition to producing his own work, he organises and curates various events, happenings, and festivals including: Calling Planet Earth! (2021), Bodies in Resonance (2021), Acoustic Mirror (2020), the international digital art festival Sight and Sound Festival (2019), Ibrida*Pluri A/V Festival (2019), Amplified (2018) and PirateBlocRadio In-Situ (2017). From 2014 to 2018, he worked as Technical Director, Lab Director, and Co-director of Eastern Bloc, an artist-run centre dedicated to presenting emerging media artists in Montréal, Canada.

MARTÍN RODRÍGUEZ | ZOOM OUT/SORTIR DE ZOOM

MARTÍN RODRÍGUEZ

Sound & AV performances at La Petite Boîte Noire – September 09, 2022 – 9 pm

ENTRE TEMPS PERDUS (2020-21)

Martín Rodríguez

Entre temps perdus is an album and listening experience by musician and multidisciplinary artist Martín Rodríguez. Initiated with exploratory sessions with choreographer/dancer Corinne Crane, the project examines the time stretch of a specific moment, by creating a space between contemplation and movement. These sessions began prior to the pandemic, but gained momentum as the realities of the global health crisis prevailed. From these early experiments, Rodríguez developed an instrument using live radio broadcasts, a modular theremin and a cymbal. Exploring time, movement and resonance, the result is an unveiling of the harmonies and textures hidden between the broadcast and the cymbal. This unconventional instrument creates a music that can be described as ambient electroacoustic. Entre temps perdus also makes use of field recordings made while the artist was observing a new silence in Montreal’s urban spaces during the first days of the pandemic.