GIJON.- In 2007, LABoral held the first L.E.V. (Laboratory of Visual Electronics) Festival, whose initials pay tribute to Lev Thermen, the Russian scientist who was the father of the present-day synthesiser. The founding goal of the festival was to provide an eclectic and qualitative overview of electronic sound creation and its intersections with the visual arts. Throughout its five events, the Festival has featured a selection of the most interesting projects by international creators working in this field, spanning from up-and-coming promises to renowned artists.

The L.E.V. Festival is a physical and ephemeral space, particularly focused on the natural synergy between image and sound, on live action, on the influence of avant-garde movements on contemporary creation, on the relationship forged between the spectator and the public space, and on the new art movements emerging around the world in connection with audiovisual culture.

Visualizar el sonido [Visualizing Sound] partakes in this vision and expands the Festival’s lines of research to the exhibition space. The idea behind this international group exhibition is to examine the synthesis between image and sound, the various graphic and physical representations of sound, and its evolution in contemporary art. Sound should not be detached from the surrounding that informs it: space, vibration, wave, technique for representation, perception and even visualization. Visualizar el sonido was conceived with the idea of generating a dialogue between all its constituent parts, covering a whole century of creation around the same notion or concept: the mastering, representation and taming of the wave, the need to go beyond the limits that our senses can take us to, which, at the end of the day, is the essence of all art.

CURATORS: Fiumfoto
Cristina de Silva Marbán (1972) and Nacho de la Vega (1968) are the two members of Fiumfoto, a collective focused on video creation and multimedia. They have presented their works at leading art events, galleries plus digital art and electronic music festivals in Spain. They also curate and produce art events like Arenas Movedizas and the LEV festival, both held in Gijón. Interested in the mass media and their effectiveness in launching messages, the ludic and festive appearance of their actions cuts against the grain of certain practices of power, driving them in the opposite direction and collaborating on pieces.