The Anta Project: tearing down walls with a sonic vision
When working on SonicAnta in the Sonoran Desert, Glenn Weyant is closely watched by armed US border patrol officers, The Department of Homeland Security and the Police Department of the City of Nogales, AZ. Despite all the authoritative attention, Weyant keeps his cool and continues drumming modified chop sticks against the steel wall of the US-Mexcican boarder. Slowly moving along, he takes a cello bow and begins to play the barbed wire fences and other landmarks and objects separating Mexico and the United States.
Weyant is a visionary- a sonic visionary to be exact. Carefully recording the ambient noises produced, he converts these experimental performances into mixed sound collages that set new standards for the realm of experimental sound recording and align themselves artistically with other groundbreaking sound design experiments, such as All Ice Records from Norway.
The Anta Project blurs the lines between sociopolitical art and experimental music. By reinventing the barrier fence into an electro-acoustic instrument, Weyant breaches on the controversial issue of US boarder control. His comment: “It’s an easy way of galvanizing the tension. We don’t have solutions, but at least we can have a focal point for our fear: ‘We built a wall, we’re safe.’ But if the border has become a symbol of national insecurity, why can’t we take the symbol and turn it on its head? Let’s transform the wall, reconceptualize it as a bridge between two worlds.”
I also urge you to check out on the website what the US and the Mexican government both had to say about his artwork.
A solid piece of work- thank you.
