One of the art installations created expressly for 2015 Sonic Acts is Dolmen (2014), the new project by Mexican artist Mario de Vega which is hanging from the ceiling of the large entry hall of the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. It’s a work that deals with a very interesting topic as electromagnetic pollution in a critical and coherent way, being careful to convey a very specific message to the audience illustrating the problem without going deep.
One of the main topics of Sonic Acts is the invasive presence of man in natural phenomena: many of the lectures, performances and artworks are focused on different ways of considering the massive human influence on the environment. This is also the focus of Dolmen, a work which has a strong visual presence; going down the grand staircase, the audience realizes the size of the installation that hangs over the heads of the people on the ground floor: different types of antennas are piled one on the other, creating a structure that forms a hybrid of geometric technological shapes and organic forms. The audience stops talking when approaches it, as if they’re frightened by a menacing beast; when you stand under it you have the feeling to be below a snarling creature which continuously generates ominous rustlings and sinister hums.
The concept behind the project is very clear, and as the artist himself explains in the interview wrote by Carsten Seiffarth and featured in the book of the festival, the installation “makes people aware of the presence of wireless signals around us - the radio signals that are the carrier waves of our digital communications”. In fact, it acts as an element that on one hand disrupts the normal process of transmission and reception of radio signals, and on the other highlights invisible forces as a sort of high-tech windsock.
The artist's message is almost didactic in its simplicity; the process of disclosure is elementary and the installation is menacing: the Mexican artist’s point of view is really clear. The problems highlighted by this project are important, maybe more than the work itself; the main aim of the entire project seems to be to make people aware of this situation in a direct and simple way.
Filippo Lorenzin
