Carlos Sandoval

Biography and Work

Carlos Sandoval was born in an archetypal barrio in downtown Mexico city. Since his childhood he was exposed to harrowing social and cultural conditions which were later reflected in his work. He has lived in Mexico City (1956–64), Cuernavaca City (1964–78 and 1983-03), New York City (1979), Vienna (1980–82), Los Angeles California (1983) and Berlin, Germany (2003–present). In 2009 he became a German citizen and now holds a dual Mexican-German passport/nationality. Having abandoned his studies at Escuela Nacional de Música UNAM 1976-79 (classical guitar and composition), Sandoval went on to study composition, analysis and theory, privately, with Julio Estrada (1985–90). He also assisted and took part in private sessions with a number of composers, including Brian Ferneyhough, Joji Yuasa, Peter Garland, Lorenc Barber, Leo Brouwer, François Bernard Mâche, James Tenney, Stefano Scodanibio and Iannis Xenakis. Sandoval is among a few active Mexican composers of his generation who did not receive education primarily in Europe or the US and have no formal degree in composing. He did however, eventually take up studying in Europe, where he learnt Piano tuning and construction at the Bösendorfer Klavier Fabrik in Vienna (1980–82). This stint, rather than the "Vienna School") changed his outlook on music in general. Later on As photo- and videographer he studied with Fabri (Austria), Sirgo (Mexico) and Fathi (Berlin). His work has been shown mostly in Germany but also in Mexico, France, UK and The Netherlands. Since 1999, with no interruption, he has been fellow of the SNCA which is one of the highest recognitions awarded to Mexican artists by the Mexican Government. He also worked as an assistant to Conlon Nancarrow (1991–94). He has been invited to take part numerous events and contemporary music festivals such as Darmstadt Summer Courses (1990 Germany), Donaueschinger MusikTage (1994 and 2016, Germany) and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2009, UK, headlining), among others. He is an author of multiple articles and essays about music.

Early Work — Estradian-Xenakian period (1987-1990)

His early work can be identified with Julio Estrada's Techniques and the Xenakian school and includes the use of Cartesian graphics representing sonic trajectories and its evolutions, multi parametrics (utilizing several simultaneous performance and compositional resources in a single line or stave) as well as internal sonic imagination analysis. "Ginantria", for cello solo, 1990, is the best example of this period. A number of out-of-cataloque pieces also belong to this stage:

Postmodern-Synthesis Period (1993-04)

In 1991 Sandoval met Conlon Nancarrow and began work as his assistant (1991–94). The influence of Nancarrow´s music was strong at this time while some remains of Xenakian style were also present. Sandoval´s musical thinking began to lose channelization. This lack of "school", "channelized impulse" or "Style" ("Style is just a super thin ham slice between your "freedom" and your own limitations" (Sandoval, 2009)) remained a characteristic of his work and can be easily identified with a radical postmodern approach. Besides this, it took Sandoval almost four years to assimilate and synthesize the influence of both Estrada and Nancarrow, apparently the polar opposites of one another but in fact both belonging to a Cartesian, rational, object-oriented way of thinking. Sandoval's music from this period is described well by the list of 16 postmodern music characteristics defined by Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17). Between 2002 and 2003, just prior to relocating to Germany, Sandoval published two of his "manifestos": "Imaginación, análisis y posmodernismo" and "De la fenomenología al ejercicio estético, o una apología del cinismo".

Still in Catalogue from the "Fellini Circus Series":

Still in catalogue transition pieces:

German Period 1 (2003-2007)

Carlos Sandoval moved to Berlin, Germany in September 2003. His first German project was "Mextoys", 2003–04, 80:00", commissioned by the Festival Eigenarten and the Culture Ministry in Hamburg and premiered at the city’s prestigious Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. This piece constituted a breakthrough in Sandoval's work: it was his first true "phenomenological" work, his first full multimedia piece and his first work joining video and music into a single conceptual and constructive layer. This point marked Sandoval's departure from traditional score writing and deterministic thinking, towards developing either an experience-oriented connection to music and a Piagetian approach to animism towards music and life in general. Jean Piaget´s theories of language as an object and the cognitive inability to distinguish the external world from one's own psyche, still have a strong influence in Sandoval's work in this and the coming creative periods.

Sandoval identifies himself also with diverse Edmund Husserl's phenomenological concepts like Lifeworld ("In whatever way we may be conscious of the world as universal horizon, as coherent universe of existing objects, we, each "I-the-man" and all of us together, belong to the world as living with one another in the world; and the world is our world, valid for our consciousness as existing precisely through this 'living together.'), "Empathy and Subjectivity" (the subjectivity of others, as well as our intersubjective engagement with them), Evidence ("the successful presentation of something whose truth becomes manifest in the evidencing itself"), Intuition ("...having a cup of coffee in front of you, for instance, seeing it, feeling it, or even imagining it: these are all "filled intentions", and the object is then intuited") and Intentionality of consciousness ("the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs"). All these concepts are linked in Sandoval's work with an ethical use of technology, (or Technoethics: using technology not just without renouncing to humanism but stressing and empowering Humanism).

German Period 2 (2006-2012)

While living in Berlin, Sandoval met a number of computer-science specialists and began developing work incorporating the use of sensors. His third "manifesto", published in Germany in 2009 interjects cultural, artistic and political values to the pure act of sonification via the use of technology. His work incorporating living trees, accelerometers and hands equipped with tactile sensors is based on random-picking software, and adds a mystical quality to the otherwise objective process of transduction of physical phenomena.

German Period 3 (2014-)

Two spatial tendencies are perceivable here: The "indoors", video-based chamber-pieces, and the "outdoors", performance-based pieces. In the first case, as Saxer explains: “Antipodal to the overall tendency to instrumental theatre in media-integrative music, the Live-actions by Sandoval are combined with highly manipulated stop-motion video parts in such a way the "normal", real-time of the live-performance becomes a special emphasis.”

The "indoor", chamber pieces, deal with what is called in decision field theory "violations of stochastic dominance" or a clear denial of the independence between alternatives. “Maquina Latina”, for instance, is based on nested (Matryoshka-doll style) musician-generated metronomic inaccuracies due to performative stress. “Teleprompter” is based on, as Sandoval call it “forced isolated-musicians synchronization”, “AntiLegos”, on strictly planned discursive contradictions. And "The Mexican National Anthem as I Recall it From my Chilhdood" on child memories, patriotism and detuning-entities, as identity. In most of the pieces the raw “mother-cell” composition materials where video-generated by the performers, reading open scores.

Outdoor chamber-pieces

Two collaborative-works (with mariana castillo deball) are part of this section and show "[...] the shifting of the artistic focus from objects and installations, to the work with subjects and their creative participation, opening the same creative door for both, the artists and the performers." With these works, Sandoval turns back to his second creative period (the mix of performance and composition) with an addition: the creation of solid artistic objects as a consequence of the performances.

Video works

Discography

Writings