During its circular movements, the washing machine’s drum produces a rhythmic sound, which is recorded live with contact microphones, then resampled and distorted into noise. This sound becomes an attempt to reflect on the erasure of accidental traces of life and on the idea of bringing clothes back to their socially acceptable state. The act of sonic deconstruction of the machinery sounds questions the brutal devaluation of memory in the political tendency to systematize things in order to detach them from their genuine past.

The laundry process included washing Alëna Koleso’s merch, which was left drying under the motto of 2023’s Salon Acme, “So Fresh It’s Still Wet,” at the end of the performance.

Medium: electroacoustic performance, silkscreen
Photography: Salon Acme, Lisa Sudhibhasilp
Presented: Basement, Maastricht (2022) Salon Acme, CDMX (2023)
Year: 2022–2023

Salón ACME No. 10 – CDMX, 2023