A Row of Trees
The Journal of The Sonic Art Research Unit
Neükolln, Berlin, Winter 2024.
It is not only the clouds that obscure the sun, but also the silence. Not just the cold, but avoidance. But not here, not in this street. Here, we shout; here, we gather. Amidst the cracks, it emerges. It resonates—the essence of this place, entwined with me now. What the rain leaves behind. Leaking. Dripping.
Continuing a collective research on ‘reading rains’ that started a year ago and was shared through a workshop in a rain basin in Berlin known as Floating University, with Elizabeth Gallón Droste, Pablo Torres Gomez, and Susanna Gonzo, I wanted to give an extra focus to the rain drops. To their travels.
Water is a network carrying stories from not only the past-present, but from different dimensions. If attentive, it is a matter where all realities united can be perceived, yet exist in their difference. When it rains, we are all touched by it. Even when being under a roof. The stories that fall from the clouds are transformed by the bodies they touch and affect us all.
However, rain is not one thing. It is composed of drops that fall at different tempos and rhythms; that have different forms and sizes. Every drop carries a different story and sound. Every drop sounds depending on what it touches and where it disintegrates with a splash. Every drop is changed by its relation with a now and a before. Each drop carries a story-sound in continuity. Visible endings and beginnings.
And so I adventured to listen to the sound of a drop falling into different bodies and places that I relate with in order to listen to the stories they bring. To converse with them. And to transform with them.
What I live, what my street lives, what Berlin lives, what my body lives, what lives, what lives, lives with, lives with, with, we live. An amplified plop.
A wedding
Wind announcing a celebration of union.
Love? Who knows.
But within the actual context of Sonnennale, this is a ray of sun inside this quietness, this
grayness cold blood.
M41
The broken glass soaking, draining the stories of so many who come in search of a life
where basic needs are not everyday worries.
A life in which their kids can grow with more possibilities to accomplish what they desire.
Where they can only play.
And where they want to erase their memory.
The memory of their people.
A memory that is inconvenient for the West’s history.
West, wes, we will always blend.
And that is the beauty. To create something new for all.
But this memory reveals so much darkness and pain many pretend or prefer to pretend we don’t see.
Pavement where police constantly surveil those who come from suppressed places.
Following the orders of those who don’t want us to have the same opportunities they have. Because we are different. Because we trigger and challenge.
But things have changed.
It is not a matter of us taking care of ourselves during the winter.
But of everyone that ended up here for a global winter a few provoked since long ago. Pavements of grief and protest. Of arrests of kids and women.
Of families and food. So much soul food.
M41 when I see you I feel relief. It’s so cold but now I am going home.
Bed
Space to spread. Melt, cocoon. To be warm. To be soft. To forget. To remember to dream
and learn of other dimensions.
To meditate on questions. To share, to cuddle, to love. To open, to close. To hold. Fireworks.
Scared dogs. Fire.
Love.
To not think. To overthink.
And to start all over again with the missing sun.
Abuela
You came with a twin mug, a bigger container. Which stayed in Mexico. So I brought only
you. Reminds me of her. Which is why you are my favorite. My holder every morning. I sip
sip memory. Her hugs and secrets. Sus boleros.
I have my name because it is her name.
I now carry her as well.
I can live her differently while recognizing her.
I can free her while she freed me.
She freed me.
Green tree
How can I not see you?
In the middle of monotonous branches. I don’t mean to say they are not beautiful. They are just sleeping.
As should I. Rest.
But how could I within all this flaming.
I can’t afford to not see.
I can’t not see.
I can’t not feel.
I cannot pretend. It hurts. This molds hurt.
Does yours hurt too?
I guess so as you constantly grow your little red fruits.
Growth hurts. And it goes all over the place.
Canal
Did you defend the hands that built you?
That made you connect this Industrial empire.
Who then used you to throw waste and bodies.
Bodies throwing themselves in you.
Brave souls.
You have seen so much. Flowed with so much.
And as a terminally Ill person, you need to be injected with oxygen at night now.
Yet you give us and swans happiness.
Summer rides.
Deep talks and blurry reflections.
El Nahkauf
I visit you between 1-2 times per week.
I honestly avoid you.
I even have a friend in you.
He sometimes doesn’t remember me.
I like him, always kind. Happy to see I buy condoms.
Not rushing me to put all my groceries in the bags.
Wishing me a good day.
I wish I were more adventurous in your aisles.
Explore unknown flavors.
But you are not so inspiring.
More like frigid and strange.
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