The work of Spanish visual and sound artist Marc Vilanova occupies the intermediate spaces between art, science, nature, and technology. His sculptures, installations, and performances are designed to “promote active listening to the often-unnoticed voices of the world around us.” For him, “listening” means more than using auditory perception; it is a whole-body experience. Rather than composing with sound, Vilanova explores frequencies inaccessible to human perception by engaging other sensory faculties as proxies—what we can’t hear, we might see or feel. His immersive works, which translate the inaudible into kinetic force, networks of light, and traces of matter, offer imaginative access to a soundscape—both natural and technological—that ordinarily lies beyond our grasp and yet shapes our world. His aim is not to challenge or solve perceptual limitations, but to open our minds and senses to a radical universal attunement through encounters that place us firmly within the planet’s shared acoustic ecology and bring us closer to the imperceptible, unknown core of the universe in which we live.
María Carolina Baulo: Making the imperceptible perceptible is key in your work. You emphasize what surrounds us and yet goes unnoticed. These are things, aspects of life, with which we interact, that modify our behaviors and actions even though we know little or nothing about them. Could you explain your interest in and approach to phenomena that elude perception?
Marc Vilanova: My goal is to create works that encourage listening—listening understood not only as the perception of sounds, but also as a vital attitude, a state of openness and a desire to be constantly permeated. I am interested in the voices, vibrations, and sounds that exist outside our hearing range, everything that escapes our perception, that nature that is invisible to us. . .
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