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The Concept of Obol Le 

IBELISSE GUARDIA FERRAGUTTI, FRANK ROSALY & JOCHEM VAN TOL





          OBOL LE was a musical performance group from Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti. Born in Bolivia and raised with the knowledge of the Tarabuco people, performer and singer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti initiated this project with musicians from Amsterdam and Chicago.
Under her leadership, we explored the musical structures presented on ancient and contemporary carpets from Bolivia. These carpets contain a cosmological vision of their makers the Tarabuco, in the form of scores.



OBOL LE: 
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti:  vocals, electronics 
Liú Mottes: Guitar
Frank Rosaly: drums,
Jochem van Tol: synths

Harpo ’t Hart : programming  
Janneke Raaphorst: weaving adviser

Guests: 
Ben Boyle: Autoharp, Keys
Brian Sulpizio: Guitar
Marcos Baggiani: Drums


These people have build a logics of practices and ceremonies to achieve the right conditions for their daily live. One of the main techniques is to stay surrounded by sound for an extremely long period of time. This can control the amount of rain that will fall for example, in order to have a good yearly harvest.

The use of sound as an entity to control their climate. How do they do that?

The seasons of the year are considered as sound periods. The local musical instruments get embodied by the given ‘noise’ and ‘sounds’ whispered by the Sirens at dawn. Sirens are the half living/half dead, half human/half animal and inhabit the space between the upper world (our world) and under world (the invisible world). Considered Sirens are waterfalls, a breeze, a big rock on a plain or the shadow of a bird forexample. These ‘noises’ and ‘sounds’ are played by the Tarabuco people for four months continuously. The woven carpets contain the graphic translation of this four month sound cycle and are also worn as clothes during the ceremony.
OBOL LE explored the intermedial nature of this sound ceremony, where body, sound, image, and the intention in the space have equal importance. With that in mind we made songs, we improvised, made noise, played pop and folk music and performed our compositions. Our musical material was translated in new graphical scores which unfolded in realtime. With the means of light projections a new “carpet was woven” and presented in a visual concert setting.

The first phase to research Bolivia's Sound-Season-Phenomenon was in may 2016. After a long weekend of performances and with our insights of that experience, we wanted to take the project to the next step. We aimed to be able to not just weave the music live into a light and color projection, but to really weave our music and sounds in real time with a weaving machine. So at the end of the performance you would have a graphic translation into a woven material. Not a CD, but a carpet. Our investigation was to better understand the carpets as an imprint of musical information. A graphic document of knowledge. We developed tools that a musical composition bewitches the spectator as the supposed Sirens do. OBOL LE in this way was a collaboration that existed in both musical, visual and a performative space.


CONFETTI FOR THE BLIND - 2018
JOCHEM VAN TOL        AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS.