2487

Generative multichannel sound installation.
Database, 16 self-amplified speakers, computer, bench, book, webpage, box, prints, CD audio.
Dimensions: variable.
Duration: undetermined.

At the core of the generative multi-channel sound installation 2487, whose title signifies the number of discovered fatalities among those attempting to cross the Mexico-U.S. border, is a database that contains information on the loss of life at this border. In the work, the artist speaks the names of all victims of institutional political/economic violence and displacement on whom she had been able to access information. Research was conducted in 2006, including information spanning from 1993 to 2006. The artist recorded each name in a separate sound file (lasting three seconds), from which the installation is generated through algorithms or systematic processes, building in its space sound structures whose dynamic aesthetics reproduce the disorderly processes of social migration, becoming, as a result, an original form of migration aesthetics. The artist’s actions, reflected in the voice performance of pronouncing each of the 2,487 names, are discreet and poignant, minimalistic and expressive. The sound hardware dates from the last decade of the 20th century. The artwork includes a book containing all the victims’ names and place of origin, age, and date and cause of death, if known.

Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, curator.

The eight-channel generative sound work produces an audible terrain in which names emerge from different positions, marking multiple directions of movement across the border.

Originally commissioned by Artpace San Antonio in 2006 for the International Artist-in-Residence programme New Works: 06.2, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, 2487 has since developed across several formats, including an online generative stereo version, a CD and book in a diaspora artist edition box, and a generative textual visual work presented in Valparaíso, Chile, in 2009. In 2016, curator Cheryl Haines included the work in Homeland Security at El Presidio, San Francisco. And in 2023–2024 2487 was part of a travelling exhibition project that included Germany, United States, Greece, Mexico among others.

2487 is part of the Linda Pace Foundation Collection, San Antonio, Texas, United States.

Online artwork: https://www.diaspora2487.org/

Documentation of website interaction.
Duration: 2:08 minutes.
URL: https://youtu.be/-SA9IdVv_Zw

Video documentation. diaspora I II, Artpace San Antonio, 2006.
Duration: 24 seconds.
URL: https://youtu.be/aSmiT3OHMnA

Video documentation. In the Absence of the State, 24 May–7 July 2024, Galeria Miejska Arsenał, Poznań, Poland.
Duration: 1:49 minutes.
URL: https://youtu.be/ne-664fryBY