Returnal

Returnal

Returnal

I’ve been thinking deeply about my childhood home in Los Lunas, New Mexico, a place I haven’t been able to visit during the 2020 pandemic. When I was last there, I built adobe bricks with dirt from my family’s backyard and brought them with me to California.

For this piece, titled Returnal, I documented three of these bricks across the San Francisco Bay Area, each connected with a contact microphone to a radio transmitter. Three repeating videos reveal currents of static humming from the adobe, the transmission waves slowly ebbing and flowing. The earth’s raw material and the broadcasted sound’s immaterial quality merge, pulsing through space and time, forming a circuit of return.

As geopolitical frictions across the globe inhibit unity, radio and adobe, often viewed as a technologies of the past, produce a familiar intimacy, carrying the potential for solidarity. The unique qualities of radio and adobe allow me to manifest a future not bound by borders. The static frequencies that transcend barriers give rise to a potential future where humans might also expand to new horizons embodying connection and hope.

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In New Mexico’s high desert, where I grew up, stand some of the oldest city sites in North America. It is through these structures & their primary material, adobe, that I enter into my work. Traditions of using this adobe pre-date recorded history & have been passed down for generations in my family. Sharing this landscape with the extant adobe structures are powerful radio telescopes that scan the skies for transmissions beyond the boundaries of our planet. The soil of this region has witnessed some of the most notable UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) events in history, & the residue of these phenomena spread throughout the land. This home for Ufology (the study of UFOs) is also a state on the U.S.-Mexico border, charged with the static of geopolitical conflict & the immediate stresses of individual inhabitants, past & present. These overlaps between ancient & contemporary technologies, earthbound aliens & the extra-terrestrial, amplify the ways in which experiences of desperation & hope oscillate alongside fears of The Other & desires to reach the unknown.

As we navigate the precarious terrain of a global pandemic, many are left daydreaming about their homes, wherever they may be. I find myself reflecting on the backyard of my childhood home; wide open space, cobblestone clouds hanging in the sky, the dirt in the yard humming beneath my feet. Upon reflection, I find myself wondering— What does this earth sound like? If we listen closely enough, can we hear it and what does it say? What technologies can amplify the voice of the land? How can we communicate with it & preserve it? Does it remember me?

These are the questions I find myself asking as I conjure ways to connect with my family & with the earth, back home.

I’ve been thinking deeply about my childhood home in Los Lunas, New Mexico, a place I haven’t been able to visit during the 2020 pandemic. When I was last there, I built adobe bricks with dirt from my family’s backyard and brought them with me to California.

For this piece, titled Returnal, I documented three of these bricks across the San Francisco Bay Area, each connected with a contact microphone to a radio transmitter. Three repeating videos reveal currents of static humming from the adobe, the transmission waves slowly ebbing and flowing. The earth’s raw material and the broadcasted sound’s immaterial quality merge, pulsing through space and time, forming a circuit of return.

As geopolitical frictions across the globe inhibit unity, radio and adobe, often viewed as a technologies of the past, produce a familiar intimacy, carrying the potential for solidarity. The unique qualities of radio and adobe allow me to manifest a future not bound by borders. The static frequencies that transcend barriers give rise to a potential future where humans might also expand to new horizons embodying connection and hope.

*************************************************************************************************************************

In New Mexico’s high desert, where I grew up, stand some of the oldest city sites in North America. It is through these structures & their primary material, adobe, that I enter into my work. Traditions of using this adobe pre-date recorded history & have been passed down for generations in my family. Sharing this landscape with the extant adobe structures are powerful radio telescopes that scan the skies for transmissions beyond the boundaries of our planet. The soil of this region has witnessed some of the most notable UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) events in history, & the residue of these phenomena spread throughout the land. This home for Ufology (the study of UFOs) is also a state on the U.S.-Mexico border, charged with the static of geopolitical conflict & the immediate stresses of individual inhabitants, past & present. These overlaps between ancient & contemporary technologies, earthbound aliens & the extra-terrestrial, amplify the ways in which experiences of desperation & hope oscillate alongside fears of The Other & desires to reach the unknown.

As we navigate the precarious terrain of a global pandemic, many are left daydreaming about their homes, wherever they may be. I find myself reflecting on the backyard of my childhood home; wide open space, cobblestone clouds hanging in the sky, the dirt in the yard humming beneath my feet. Upon reflection, I find myself wondering— What does this earth sound like? If we listen closely enough, can we hear it and what does it say? What technologies can amplify the voice of the land? How can we communicate with it & preserve it? Does it remember me?

These are the questions I find myself asking as I conjure ways to connect with my family & with the earth, back home.

Returnal was created by Santino Gonzales using three handmade adobe bricks, a radio transmitter, a solar powered generator, a pocket radio, and a contact microphone. The installation covers about 4ft x 3ft of space on the earth.

Returnal was created by Santino Gonzales using three handmade adobe bricks, a radio transmitter, a solar powered generator, a pocket radio, and a contact microphone. The installation covers about 4ft x 3ft of space on the earth.

http://www.santinogonzales.com/returnal

https://youtu.be/I6-LpIiU94A

Website: http://www.santinogonzales.com Instagram: @tino_ufo

Santino Gonzales is an artist from New Mexico who received his BFA from the University of New Mexico and his MFA from California College of the Arts. Gonzales is a recipient of the Dedalus Foundation fellowship and currently works out of California, building adobe, making crop circles, and transmitting secret radio stations.

Oakland, California, United States of America