During this meeting/conference followed by a performance, Charo Calvo focuses on the relationship between sound and image. A complex and fascinating relationship that is not limited to audiovisual media, but manifests itself in everyday life. Starting from biological listening, we move on to the possibilities of electric, amplified listening, which is part of our daily lives and has changed our perception of the world. Sounds create mental images in our brains; we see images behind our eyes when we listen. And we can further develop this innate ability through training; we can learn to listen in a creative, active, poetic and musical way.
In the audiovisual arts, we are supposed to listen carefully, because we use sound as a creative material. At this point in technological evolution, we have access to an incredible variety of sounds, through recording or instrumental production, but increasingly through access to libraries, or through everything that is present – and constantly growing – in the digital cloud. Making and finding sounds for cinema, radio or dance no longer requires large budgets, but imagination and creativity are put to the test to maintain a degree of originality in our sound creation work.
A sound is often difficult to describe with a single word, or even with many words. There are many more sounds than there are words to name them. What’s more, sounds evolve over time and our mental image of them changes when they are associated with other sounds. Through this encounter, let’s try to invent new sounds together that speak to us, that move us and challenge us, far beyond the sounds we can find using search engines.
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Charo Calvo is a Spanish electroacoustic composer, sound designer and teacher, living in Belgium. After having performed as a dancer with the influential Belgian dance company Ultima Vez, she started her studies on Electroacoustic Composition in 1992 with Annette Vande Gorne at Brussels Conservatory (now ARTS2 Mons) and graduated in 1999.
From 1992 her work as composer is being developed through different media, widely diffused on international venues and festivals, dance performances, theatre, film and radio. She has received several important awards such as Palma Ars Acustica 2014 EBU, Phonurgia Nova Awards Paris 2017 and 2023, Prix Marulic 2018 Croatia, Grand Prix Nova Bucharest 2019 , Grand Prix Nova Binaural Category 2023, and was shortlisted for Prix Europa Berlin, Hearsay Prize Ireland.