Sound installation artists/composers Guillermo Galindo and Chris Brown collaborated with Galería de la Raza to create Transmission Mission, a multidimensional, audience interactive, live electronic music performance. The project sought to recreate the distinctive aural qualities of the Mission neighborhood and present them in an interactive format. The two artists had produced four previous “Transmission” pieces in Mexico City and Northern California.
The collaboration began with a series of radio-sound production workshops at Galería that engaged young Latino artists along with older community members in the creation of new poetic and musical works. Themes, texts, performances, and recordings of the workshop participants and the neighborhood became the production’s sonic material.
During the public presentation at Yerba Buena Gardens, Galindo and Brown occupied the center of the space and played electronic music from laptop computers. Their music was accompanied by live spoken-word performances, and all was mixed into four channels, each of which was be sent to its own low-power FM radio transmitter. Audience members could tune in radios to the transmitters, and change the soundscape by moving through the gardens.
Lead artist Guillermo Galindo has written music for many independent films and multimedia projects and designed sound for radio, museum dioramas, and sound installations. Transmission Mission continued his exploration of public spaces. Chris Brown is a composer, pianist, and electronic musician who has been creating new music in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years. His interest in multi-channel sound installations began with “Talking Drum” in 1998.
Founded in 1970, Galería de la Raza is one of the nation’s oldest and most respected Latino arts organizations. It presents programs that examine and express artistic concepts central to the Latino experience.