LAUNCHING FRUTA BOMBA THROUGH SONIC PLOTS

LIZABEL MÓNICA

Although we have been busy since last year, when we founded the recording studio, we decided to launch Fruta Bomba as a project though Sonic Plots, and in the context of the Havana Biennial 2019. There are a few reasons behind this decision. First, we like the fact of being an art project that contributes to the biennial by adding other sensibilities than those of the male creator. Second, we want to establish that by women we understand not just the assigned at birth gender identity, but a comprehensive spectrum that includes trans women and other individuals with a variety of gender performances and sexual orientations. Third, we do enjoy a project that understands music as a way of pushing the boundaries of what it means to listen in an age characterized by techno-mediated content and a constant oscillation between tense modernities.

Finally, we embrace collaborative results as the ones that come from the union of artists Adriana Knouf, her collaborators in the United States, and Damarys Benavides in Cuba. While the United States artists sent their musical compositions for Fruta Bomba to remix, musician and Fruta Bomba producer Damarys Benavides took good care of the pieces by adding local sounds and rhythms.

Sonic Plots is a collaboration of women from two countries that are involved in a complex historical and political relationship, now aggravated by the acoustic fallout of the “sonic attacks.’’ With Sonic Plots, Adriana and Damarys mixed their distinct sound sensitivity into overtures or preambles for future conversations and continuous circulation of a diverse corpus of traveling waves.