ROSKILDE.- Gritar, No Caer unfolds in the Zone of Silence, a remote desert area on the edge of the Mapimi Biosphere Reserve in Durango, Mexico. Long surrounded by popular and pseudoscientific belief—from meteorite strikes to military experiments and unexplained electromagnetic anomalies—the area is said to disrupt radio transmission itself, and provides both the geographic and the symbolic core of the work.
During a research trip to the region, the Italian artist Francesco Fonassi conducted a series of radio experiments using a pickup truck fitted out as a mobile broadcast unit: a sound system, tape recorders, a shortwave transmitter/receiver, and samplers, used to establish radio bridges across different points in the desert. Rather than documenting the landscape through field recording, the work proposes a form of active listening that contaminates and interrogates the territory rather than capturing it.
Fragments of electronic compositions, tape loops, interference and distortions, spoken words of legends and indigenous poetry, rhythmic cells, and the sounds of pre-Columbian aerophones constitute the sonic body used during the broadcast sessions. This solitary, oracular form of listening draws on the natural magic and pseudoscientific speculation associated with the area. Positioned between science and mysticism, the Zone becomes, in Gritar, No Caer, an active field of research—where sound operates simultaneously as presence, signal, and invocation.
The imagery surrounding the Zone of Silence adds a further layer of meaning to this exploration: radio waves struggle to travel, mysterious lights cross the sky, and magnetic anomalies alter the psycho-geographical perception of the place. Some attribute these phenomena to meteorite strikes in the 1970s, others to military experiments or inexplicable geographic features. This territory, at the crossroads of science and mysticism, thus becomes an active field of study and research.
After being presented in various occasions in the form of performative acts (El Eco Experimental Museum, Mexico City; Xing, Bologna), and as a workshop with students at ESAD, Grenoble, a multichannel sound installation is now on display at the Sound Wells in Copenhagen as part of the exhibition The Sound of a co-curated exhibition by Moderna Museet Malmö and Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde, presenting artists exploring the poetic, spatial and political potentials possibilities of sound in contemporary art.
On May 28, a permanent sound intervention for public space was presented at Museion in Bolzano, Italy. A custom-made speaker horn has been permanently installed on the museum’s rooftop, facing the public park, diffusing a sound composition drawn from the radio expedition in the desert. As a sibylline and mysterious acoustic phenomenon appearing to the ears, the piece surfaces intermittently weekly. Its activation times, volume thresholds, and sonic reach are shaped in dialogue with the city's noise pollution regulations and local authorities. A VHF radio signal is broadcasted permanently alongside it, allowing the work to bridge with a second emission system within range, inside or outside the museum. The work will enter Museion's permanent collection, together with a photographic and video series and a sound composition on reel-to-reel tape.
An LP Record has been produced, edited by publisher VIAINDUSTRIAE SUONO / independent label Villa Recordings, and a seminar toward the entire project has taken place at Frederiksberg Public Library of Copenhagen on June 17 with the participations of philosophers and researchers such as Holger Schulze, Cally Spooner, Ilaria Gadenz og Simone Frangi.
The project is part of The Oracular Eavesdropper, supported by the Italian Council (2024), a program of the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Francesco Fonassi (b. 1986, Italy) is a sonic artist, independent researcher, musician, sound designer and producer. For twenty years he has been active in the sphere of sonic arts with electronic, acousmatic and environmental compositions, experimental radio projects, performances, sound field researches, listening sessions, sculptural prototypes, installations and audiovisual/sensory spaces. His work has been featured in institutions, museums, festivals and independent spaces in Europe, Asia and America.
Since 2018 he has co-founded and co-directed Spettro, an independent venue/research sound laboratory/radio platform/club in Brescia (Italy), which is part of a large network of sound artists and musicians across Europe, as well as the independent label Villa Recordings since 2015.
