La Jornada: Musicians explore the images they hear and the sounds they see

The links between music and photography are closer than one might imagine, said writer Gabriela Villa, who has developed the job of “photo teller,” as she calls the exercise of creating fiction before and after photography.

“Both disciplines, which we believe to be separate, touch each other in the invisible: in waiting, at the vertex where everything that is not yet born emerges towards what we are looking for and what is happening,” explains the narrator in The still side of time: Musicians who take photographya book that is presented today at 7 p.m. at Exit La Librería (Río Pánuco 215, Cuauhtémoc neighborhood). On May 17 it will have another presentation, at the National Watercolor Museum.

Images that are heard and sounds that are seen are the territory explored by the eight artists brought together in this editorial project published by RojoMar Editores. Their peculiarity is that all of them have music as their main activity, either as composers or performers.

According to Germán Romero (Mérida, 1966), creator and curator of this work, photography allows the musician to encourage other types of reflections and critical thinking with a discipline that does not compete in time with musical practice.

“If you ask the participants in this project, they will say something similar. They are professional musicians who found in photography a discipline that allows them to reflect on creative processes from a totally different perspective than music, and thus cultivate both in their own spaces of time and critical thinking.”

In his opinion, the art of the lens “combines very well” with musical practice, in principle because it is a discipline that does not demand the time that the other does, in addition to allowing a lot of versatility and experimentation. “It is common for a photographer to go from one genre to another in a short time, while music requires concentration on a single type of rigor.”

The still side of time was born from the aforementioned composer and photographer’s concern to explore the links between both expressions from the experience of other active professional musicians who are involved in the world of images.

“I have cultivated this reflection for 20 years and I realized that others had the same concern,” he points out. “I found it interesting to compile the artistic conclusions of people like me in a book. I wanted to open the doors to people who are not professional photographers, not because their work has no level, but because they do not seek to be validated by the medium. They approach creation from the pleasure of doing so.”

He emphasizes that the fact that photography is a secondary activity does not imply that the authors are not committed to creating consistent images. “We are not simple amateurs. We are united by the characteristic of not pretending to be professionals or seeking validation from the photographic medium, but rather making an artistic work with creative professional standards.”

Subjective links

For Romero, the links between both disciplines are more subjective than natural, as they depend on who develops them. “It would be difficult for me to say that there are truths or objective links between photography and music. These arise when the artist pours his personality into the two disciplines and finds his own answers,” he says.

“I can say what my subjective links are. It’s not that the disciplines share them; I have created a network of personal connections. Each participant has found their own. For example, Iván Naranjo and Miguel Mesa work technology perfectly in music and in their photography we see similar digital manipulation processes. In my case, I am interested in the dialogue between history and my current production: I take photos that nod to Margaret Cameron or Graciela Iturbide, and that is also found in my music.”

Regarding the extent to which musical knowledge and sensitivity influence or condition the photographic gaze, the editor and pedagogue also responds: “it is difficult to affirm that we take a specific type of photo because we are musicians.

“Photography, although we do not approach it with a professional criterion, allows us to continue reflecting on creative processes from another discipline. We have found in it a natural coexistence with music. Both disciplines have a very characteristic space in our lives and in artistic creation.”

The book brings together images of the violinist Norma Carrillo Trueba, the harpsichordist and percussionist Miguel Cicero, the performer and teacher Gustavo de la Torre Rodríguez and the flutist and saxophonist Sibila de Villa Azarcoya. Likewise, from the composer and interdisciplinary artist Miguel Mesa, the composer and electronic media performer Iván Naranjo, the performer Carlos Rosas and Germán Romero himself.