Distorted Tunes Test

2023 / 10’min                                                           
Installation
XIII Mostra Sonora Convent de Sant Agustí︎︎︎

Amusia is the term given to a number of disorders that make it impossible to recognize or reproduce musical tones or rhythms; which can also lead to problems with writing or diction. It is estimated that 4% of the population suffers from amusia. It can be congenital, but in most cases it is acquired due to brain damage. There are several types of amusia, depending on the musical aspect it affects: Motor amusia, whose clinical expression would be the inability to whistle or sing, and Perceptive amusia, whose clinical expression is the inability to discriminate tones.
One way to warn or to be able to diagnose this Perceptive Amusia is through the Distorted Tunes Test proposed here.


Starting from the precepts raised in the 60s by David Rosenhan or Timothy Leary, questioning the authority of certain medical institutions that advocate the control, labelling, stigmatization or abuse of drugs, Distorted Tunes Test runs away from conspiracy theories, all and steal from these it’s low-cost bot aesthetics.

The proposal aims to approach sound phenomena and how it interacts with '(community) health', while raising questions linked or not to the context of a sound Biennale; are we listening correctly? Can we enjoy a piece if we suffer from disorders? Is a symptom a disease? Are we heading towards the psychiatryzation of society?

The installation falls within the framework of the culture of hyper-diagnosis, where our feelings, thoughts and behaviors are analyzed by a large number of people, in many cases interested, in order to consider us sick. The phenomenon is so extreme that it has resulted in a paradox of the "abnormal normal": in many mental health statistics, the most common is that there are more people with 'mental illnesses' than 'healthy' people.