Feria de Arte Sonoro de Puerto Rico(Puerto Rico Sound Art Fair)

Puerto Rico celebrated its third Feria de Arte Sonoro (FAS|PR|2013) the month of October with an exhibition, artist panels, curator talks, three nights of live performances by local artists, and the island's premier of "60 x 60" (2012), an audio performance featuring 60 new pieces of music each lasting no more than 60 seconds. Lisa Ladner, an independent curator who divides her time between Zurich and San Juan, is the founding organizer of FAS. The first sound art fair was held in 2008, and the second occurred in 2010. Each fair has had a different curatorial team, a different focus, and a different venue. This year San Juan's Sacred Heart University hosted FAS|PR|2013 and Ladner invited two artists based in Puerto Rico--Andrés Alfonso Lugo Cruz and Norma Vila Rivero--to co-curate the event with her. FAS|PR|2013 was the most international sound art fair to date. The exhibition presented 26 works by 21 artists, musicians, sound engineers, and composers from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and the United States. Works included pure sound environments, abstract drawings featuring musical symbols and geometric interpretations of sound space, and installations, interactive computer programs, and videos, and performances with a sound component. Because this was the first FAS to take place at a university, the curatorial team focused their selection of works on pieces that investigate the intersection of sound, science, and technology. Two examples of this were Michael Edward Egerton's study of 56 separate classes of vocal multiphonics and Sarah O'Holloran and Margaret Anne Schedel's sonifications of data collected by a psychologist who studied facial expressions by people with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder. FAS plays an important role in the arts in Puerto Rico. Not only does it expose audiences to what is happening in the field of sound art locally and globally, it fosters collaborations between visual artists and sound artists in Puerto Rico. FAS also encourages the study of the history of sound art in Puerto Rico by inviting artists like composer Francis Schwartz, a former collaborator with John Cage, to talk about his new media performances in San Juan beginning in the late 1960s. FAS is also honored to give artists who were born in Puerto Rico, but live outside the island, like Roxana Pérez Méndez this year, the opportunity to exhibit for the first time in their homeland. FAS|PR|2013 participating artists include Massimo Avantaggiato, Migdalia Luz Barens Vera, Sarah Boothroyd, Enrique Cardenas, Colectivo de Electrónica Isleña, Jeffrey Concepción, Lionel and Hector Cruet, Ian Deleón, Calin Dover Tarrats, Michael Edward Egerton, Antonio González Walker, Sarah O'Holloran, Anne Schedel, Stephanie Loveless, Augusto Meijer, Evan X. Merz, Dennis H. Miller, Yemuel Moreno, Margaret Noble, Leonardo Olazagasti, João Pedro Oliveira, Takagi Masakatsu, Omar Obdulio Peña Forty, Roxana Pérez Méndez, Kala Pierson, Mauricio Rivera Henao, Eduardo Rosario, Julian Scordato, Aurelio Scotto, Noemí Segarra, Daniel Swilley, and Kevin Zhang.