Image from the concert program by Pablo Ziccarello (12+1).

An 8-channel electronic piece for custom speaker set-up.

The piece was made out of recordings I made of the police radio communications between the Police Central Station and the agents on the streets. I tried to find poetry in the technical speech used by the police, theatrical interest on the short wave radio sound quality, music in the way people speak, beauty in horror. The piece was first premiered in its stereo version, in Argentina’s National Public Radio. For its live performance, I developed, in collaboration with composer Juan Pampín, La Estrella Federal speaker set up: 8 speakers placed as 2 squares differing from each other in 45º. One of the squares was at ear level and the other was 2 meters high. The audience was sat in an inner square of seats facing in four different directions.

The 8-channel version was premiered in September of 2001 at IMPA (La Fábrica Ciudad Cultural): an aluminum factory ran by its workers that becomes a cultural center after business hours.

Audio excerpt from the first section: play

12 + 1 [ a photographic series by Pablo Ziccarello that appeared in the Concert’s program ]

Press: MarianoDelMazo, FedericoMonjeau

A stereo version of the piece was released in the CD Intervenciones 99/00 (BAU Records 2002).

Spatial layout of speakers and audience: