Recorded in Arica—a Chilean town where the Atacama Desert meets the Pacific—Sound Desert is a field recording work that investigates this border territory where Chile, Bolivia, and Peru come together. For this first sound project, already greatly awarded, Diego Véliz uses a free narrative sound structure to help us imagine five landscapes: the coast, an international bus station, a farmers’ market, an endangered nature reserve, and a railroad that has become a ghost town since the mass arrival of trucks. Initially conceived as a map, the work instead invites us to listen to five soundscapes as diverse as the territory in which they are anchored. (JC)

Sound Desert