Rainer Krause
Participant in
SoundLAB VI – sonic art project environments
soundPOOL – a challenge for imagination
Rainer Krause (Germany 1957) sound and plastic artist, lives and works in Chile since 1987.
Since 2003 Rainer Krause has produced sound installations and radiophonic work. In 2005 he participated with the radiophonic play “…actual \ according to Vilém Flusser text†in the Mercosur Biennial, Brazil. In 2005, he was curator of “Reverberanciasâ€, the first anthological exhibition of chilean sound art in the National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago de Chile.
In 2006 he curated of the radiophonic show cycle “Radio Ruidoâ€, Santiago de Chile. He is presently working as a sound and visual arts teacher at several universities in Chile.
Curatorial statement
Chile has a brief history of sound art, but no tradition. Experimentations made since the 70s have not achieved independence from other artistic manifestations, rather they have been used in cunjunction with or diluted with the other arts exhibitions, concerts of temporary music or informal poetry nights. The difficulty of consolidating a sustained practice can be partly explained by Chile’s geographic situation (isolated by the Andes and the Atacama dessert), economic issues (little access to travel, bad communication) and politicas (a long period of military dictatorship with censorship and international isolation) and last but not least a self refertial culture. These factors have meant that there has been limited information about development in other countries.
Although the University of Chile installed one of the first electronical studies of music investigation in Latin-American, the few plays and sound experiments that were produced in there, did not achieve continuity or a significant place in the culture local production. An extremely conservative public, never showed an interest for a kind of art that broke with traditional composition and was not profitable in the small art market.
With the return to democracy in Chile in the early 90s, there was an appearance of new cultural spaces and some increase in the funds available for cultural creation. Young artists started to investigate sound as a poetic, plastic and non musical material. A little later, the University of Chile incorporated the sound art as an element in visual arts for the first time.
At the end of the 90s with the increase in sales of cheaper imported electronical equipment in Chile, the general acquisition of digital recording, saving and sound edition devices became possible. However, this was a late phenomenon if we compare the situation with other Southamerican countries, were this development empowered the growing production of digital music, in line with the international material which circulates on the Internet. The hardware and the software that Chile presently has is the same as that which is used in countries all over the world.
The most interesting local proposals are ones that are not based on digital creation exclusively but which draw references upon different elements of the international sound art movements, like the improvisation of free jazz, Fluxus procedures, sound performance, soundscape, radiophonic work (despite the fact that in Chile there are too few radio stations that play them for commercial purpose) incorporating Chilean and Latinamerican elements, areas where the author has a role because of his individuality, cultural condition, with the voice, the text or how he relates with the local and cultural background.
In 2005 there was exhibition and a cycle of performances exclusively about sound art for the first time ever. On the entrance of the concert room of the University of Chile theatre the sound installation collective exhibition “Radio Ruido†was presented confronting the regular philharmonic concert audience with disconcerting sound proposals. On other hand, the National Museum of Fine Arts presented the exhibition and performance cycle “Reverberanciasâ€, that tried to incorporate different sound expressions that were produced in Chile, including sound poetry and digital music.
The works presented in this selection of SoundLAB has been produced during the last year. Some of these creations have been shown previously in events and exhibitions and the rest were created specially for SoundLab.
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Rainer Krause curates for
featuring these Chilenian soundartists
Luis Barie
Mario Soro
Claudio Fernandez Sini
Foro de Escritores (FDE)
Ensamble Majamama
Radio Ruido
Andres Torres
Pintor Z