An article posted on October 27, 2010 by Lisa Kori Chung

Lisa Kori Chung was invited to follow the workshops, her article is online on her blog at

.http://themediumandthemayhem.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/sound-and-the-city-at-the-mouth-of-the-amazon-2/

(Amplified City by Tal Isaac Hadad, photo by arte.mov)

A few weeks ago, I went to Belém do Pará, the largest city in the Amazon region, located at the mouth of the Amazon River. It was fitting that this was one of the locations of arte.mov 2010. The festival arte.mov was about mobile media and interaction with public space– and city surrounding it featured some of the most exciting and chaotic streets I’ve ever walked, a unique relationship to sound, and examples of mobile media integrated throughout the city.

Tal Isaac Hadad is a Paris-based artist who participated in arte.mov Belém. He gave a workshop about sound and public space, in which he and the participants went into the city and collected sounds and images, and returned to the workshop to discuss what was happening in the city. The workshop culminated in a performance about the annonciado bikers (ad-bikers), who can be found all over the city.

(Tal Isaac Hadad with workshop participants)

Below: Annonciado Biker. (Also, I think the cinematography here is really lovely.)

As you can see, ad-bikers have soundsystems mounted on their bicycles. Often, the mixing console is between the handlebars.

To me, this seems very related to gambiarra culture (as I described previously here), which is about finding creative and effective means to an end with limited resources.

(Below: bicycle built collectively by the participants of arte.mov)

I met some residents who claimed that Belém is the noisiest capital in Brazil. Besides the usual city sounds such as traffic (on a side note– unlike most of Brazil, this city is full of huge trucks and SUVs and I have no idea why), another practice is mounting bocas de ferro (literally “iron mouths”) which are large speakers perched on the top of power poles and used as a DIY public address system (also very gambiarra).

I happened to be in the city the week before elections. More public sound sources surfaced. There were crowds yelling, flags waving, fireworks, and cars with posters and speakers mounted on the roof. There were the large trucks with the tall speakers, which exist in other parts of Brazil too. One night I saw a lotação, or pirate bus (one of the white vans that usurp passengers from the regular bus system), parked for a while on a busy corner with darkened windows and flashing lights. I found out that is was the bus owned by Kaveira, a local figure and politician, whose name is a take on the word caveira, or skull. He transformed his bus into a party with neon lights, rode around the city, and everyone accompanying him wore black (maybe an extension of the skull theme?). Luciano Magno, a Belém-based artist, initiated a performance called blá, blá, blá in response to the local campaigns, which was also a commentary about local politicians who talk a lot but don’t do much. She rode her bike around the city; instead of blasting advertisements and political campaigns, she simply said “blah, blah, blah” the entire time.

More blah, blah, blah happens at the hands of local vendors. Even the stores have loud soundsystems, and they station someone out front to talk constantly into the microphone.

(another video taken during Tal Isaac Hadad’s workshop.)

I haven’t even gotten to tecno brega music and aparalhagens, the noisy culture that Belém is really known for.