Dynamo by Francisco López

Dynamo is a large-scale suspended artwork specifically developed for the atrium of the Spanish Pavilion at Expo Dubai 2020. Created by Daniel Canogar in collaboration with composer / audio-artist Francisco López, and produced in cooperation with the Spanish Agency for the Promotion of Cultural Projects –AC/E, the artwork is composed of sculptural screens that form three interlaced loops. Surrounding the artwork is a spiralling ramp that descends to the lower level of the atrium and allows the public to contemplate the artwork from multiple vantage points. Built-in inside the walls at the upper level of the atrium there is a large-scale, multi-channel sound system arranged in a ring of sixteen concealed speakers that project sound into the space, in ever-changing sonic combinations triggered by the visual patterns from the screens. The public can interact with the sculptural screens via an interactive system built into the ramp’s handrail: hands placed under the handrail’s sensors translate into animated sparks on the screens. The more the public activates the sensors, the more vibrant Dynamo’s visual and sonic content becomes. Mimicking the workings of an electromagnetic dynamo, the artwork eventually collects enough energy to generate a thundering experience that resonates through the atrium. This moment captures the intense roar of so many machines of the past echoing through our modern history –technologies that we behold with a mixture of fear and fascination. The ecstatic discharge is followed by a calmer phase evocative of the circulatory systems of living entities. This quieter mode gives way to a new cycle of gradual build-up, through an iterative repeating process of “collect and release” that is so much part of energy systems both biological and technological.
Dynamo is a meditation on the circulatory nature of energy and the synchronization of biological and technological systems. It is also an invitation for us to imagine and participate in the dynamos that will energize our future.
https://www.danielcanogar.com/work/dynamo
Studio Daniel Canogar: Daniel Canogar, Artist; Diego Mellado, Project Manager; Diogo Queirós, Developer; Ana Saracho, Production; Ana Bazán, Production; Jorge Anguita, Artistic Production; Iván Hernández, Technician; Aída Navarro, Architect; Marta Galindo, Communication.

Collaborators:
Andoni Trecet & Aitor Hijar, ALFA Arte; Darien Brito, Programmer; André Almeida & tarquino Mota, Artica; César Saracho, Engineer; Alberto de Juan, Galería Max Estrella; Raül Estrada, NNConcept.
Spanish Pavilion: Acción Cultural Española, Temperaturas Extremas, Empty.
(c) (sound composition) francisco lópez 2021 – www.franciscolopez.net

Dynamo [original soundtrack]:
Created at ‘mobile messor’ (Los Angeles, Den Haag, Reykjavik, Dubai), 2020-2021.
Edited and mastered at ‘Hundred Islands Studios’ (Rosclave enclave), 2022.

Tracklist

1.	iteration 1	16:00

2.	iteration 2	15:08

3.	iteration 3	14:38

4.	iteration 4	14:32

5.	iteration 5	14:07

Credits

released April 6, 2023

REVIEWS

Touching Extremes
touchingextremes.wordpress.com/2023/05/15/francisco-lopez-dynamo/

Vital Weekly
It is not often that we see on the cover of a release all the accomplishments of the musician, but this one has all the facts about Francisco López. Much of which I gather regular readers of these pages already know. In the world of sound that is López, absolute sound plays an important role. Many of his releases are untitled so as not to direct the listener in any way. Sometimes there is a title, which means there is some direction. 'Dynamo' is such a work. López provided the musical side to an installation for the Spanish pavilion at the Expo Dubai 2020. The cover details lengthy what this installation is about, and it is too much to repeat, even in a few words... well, I try; there are three sculptural screens, loop-like with sixteen speakers, and the audience can react with the handrail. More people means more energy, hence the name dynamo of the piece. This fits exactly the world of sound that is López; very silent and very loud. Throughout the years, he shifted his methods towards more computer-based processing of field recordings instead of a more analogue treatment of sound. And as always, this might not be the case; I am, as always, merely assuming this kind of thing. It's been a while since I had a conversation with mister López, even when he's been residing in this beautiful country of mine. I hope López allows me to disconnect the audio from the visual here to look at the audio work as an independent work because, even with the description, we have no natural visual feeling here. Also, the music is disconnected from the work via the release of the CD. In the five pieces, each averaging fifteen minutes, López uses field recordings that are highly obscured from their original sources and, no doubt, from the extensive archive of López. There is a slightly industrial feeling here, like walking along a conveyer belt in a big industrial building. Machines buzz and hum, and there is a strong, energetic flow to the sounds here. Sometimes the sound of water sets events in motion, like a good old waterwheel but with a more electric feeling. Each piece ends abruptly, followed by some silence, again in true Lópezian style. There is some mighty intense music here, even without the tactile feeling of the installation. (FdW)

Luminous Dash
luminousdash.be/reviews/album-reviews/francisco-lopez-dynamo-unexplained-sounds

Avant Music News
avantmusicnews.com/2023/05/14/amn-reviews-francisco-lopez-dynamo-2023-unexplained-sounds-group

Dark Room Magazine
www.darkroom-magazine.it/ita/107/Recensione.php?r=5006

Ver Sacrum:
www.versacrum.com/vs/2023/09/francisco-lopez-dynamo.htm

Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the main figures of the experimental music and audio art scenes. For over forty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion. He has realized hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound installations in over seventy countries of the six continents. His extensive catalogue of sound pieces –with live and studio collaborations, as well as projects curated and directed, with more than a thousand artists– has been released by over 450 recording labels / publishers all over the world. Among other prizes, López has been awarded five times with honorary mentions at the competition of Ars Electronica Festival and is the recipient of a Qwartz Award for best sound anthology.

Published by ©Unexplained Sounds Group
Sound Composition: Francisco López
Photography by Francisco López
unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com
© 2023. All rights reserved

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