Ruidos y susurros de las vanguardias - Medialab Prado

-"the International" (four times). Meanwhile, a wind orchestra combined with a
choir of automobiles playing "the Marsellaise".
- In the second repetition, everyone at the square sings together.
- At the end of the fourth verse, the cadets and the infantry return to the square
where they are welcomed with a "Hurrah".
- In the end, a festive and universal choir of all the sirens and alarm signals plays
for three minutes accompanied by bells.
- The end is signaled by the steam whistle machine.
- Ceremonial March. Artillery, fleet, motor transports and machine guns directly
receive their signals from the conductor of the tower. The white and red flag is
used for the batteries; blue and yellow for the sirens; a four-color red flag for the
machine guns, and a red flag for the individual interventions of boats, trains and
the choir of automobiles. With the signal of the battery, "the International" is
repeated twice throughout the final procession. It is obligatory to continue stoking
the fire of the furnaces while the signals remain.
All the previous is instructed for the high level estates and their irrevocable
execution under the responsibility of their authorities: military, Azneft, Gocasp,
and the related educational institutions. All participants shall carry with them their
respective instructions during the celebrations “
"Of all the arts, music has the greatest power for social organization. The oldest
myths demonstrate that the humanity knows this power. Orfeo tamed wild beasts
with a lira. Joshua collapsed the walls of Jericho with a trumpet. Ampiom's flute
averted the majestic cathedrals of Thebes. Pythagoras listened to the music of
the spheres in the structure of the cosmos and the movements of the celestial
bodies. In mythology and history, the communitarian music and chants were the
common characteristics of the social life of mankind and, in the religious and
secular rites, their more festive moments. Collective work from pasturing to
military - is inconceivable without songs and musics. One could think that the high
degree of organization of the manufacturing work under Capitalism could have
created a respectable form of musical source. Nevertheless, the October
Revolution was needed to revive the concept of the Symphony of the Sirens. The
capitalist system creates anarchical tendencies; the fear to see the workers
marching in solidarity prevents that their music is developed in freedom. Every
morning, the chaotic industrial roar gaged people.
Soon, the revolution came. Suddenly, at night one unforgettable night - the Red
Petersburg filled with many thousands of sounds from sirens, whistles and
alarms. And in response, thousands of military trucks crossed the city loaded with
soldiers shooting their rifles to the air. The Red Guard met in a rush with Kornilov's
vanguard. At this formidable moment, the cheerful chaos would have to lead back
itself by an only will that could replace the songs of alarm by the victorious hymn of
“The International”. The Great October Revolution? And once again, the sirens
and the cannons started all over Russia without a voice that unified its
organization ".
Dziga Vertov
"Radiopravda (as a proposal)”
Published in Pravda newspaper, 16 July 1925
- 154 -
“We praised agitation by facts, not only regarding the sight, but also regarding the
sight, but also regarding the hearing.
How to establish an auditory relation throughout the frontline of the world-wide
proletariat?
Regarding sight, our cinema-observers have fixed with the cameras the visible
living phenomena, it is time to talk about the recording of the audible facts.
We know the recording device: the gramophone; but there are many others much
more perfect: they record each whisper, each murmur, the noise of a waterfall, the
speech of a speaker, etc.
The presentation of this sound recording, once organized and edited, can be
easily broadcasted in Radiopravda. We can then establish in all the radiostations
a given proportion of radio-dramas, radio-concerts and the radio-news “taken
from the life of the towns from different countries”.
What acquires a fundamental importance for the radio is the “radio-news” without
paper nor distances (Lenin), and not the broadcasting of Carmen, Rigoletto, or
romances, et cetera, whereupon our broadcasting initiated its activity.
Before it is too late, it is necessary to protect our radio from the obstruction by
“artistic broadcastings” (compare them with the influence of the artistic cinema).
We oppose the Kinopravda and the Kino-eye to “art cinema”; we oppose
Radiopravda and Radio-Ear to the "artistic broadcasting”.
The technique advances quickly. A system to radio broadcast images has already
been discovered. On the other hand, there is already a medium to record sound
facts with cinematographic film.
In a near future, men will be able to radio broadcast simultaneously, for the entire
world, the visible facts and recorded sounds through a radio-camera.
We have the obligation to be prepared to put these inventions of the capitalist
world to the service of its own destruction.
And it will not be with opera or theater performances that we will prepare
ourselves. We will prepare ourselves intensely to give the proletarians of all the
countries the possibility of seeing and hearing the entire world in an organized
way, to see themselves, to hear themselves and to be understood mutually”
Empar Cubells
Hannah Höch, Woman in the Avant Garde.
Germany [ 1920/1930 ]
Weimer Germany - after World War I it experienced a new form of government,
promoted by the American financing. The change from imperialism to Capitalism
led to industrialization and a precocious consumption. This created an explosion
in two areas: firstly, a fast growth in mass media and, second, a dramatic
redefinition of the social role of women. It resulted in a response from the artists in
Berlin especially those pertaining to the Dadaist movement as an answer to this
new culture, who wondered about the political situation and the social
ramifications, in the middle of the disappointment of the war and a dying
imperialistic government. By juxtaposing an acceptance of the modern
techniques with a violent and exaggerated criticism to the capitalist system, they
reflected the hopes and the fears of a new society.
Hannah Höch, from 1915 to 1922. With Hausmann, she took part in the German
group of Dada artists, an artistic movement in Berlin dated in 1916, and also