Black Silence: Sound-art as a divulgative tool about the Genocide of the Patagonia originary peoples in the Conquest of the Desert

Abstract

Black Silence is a sound-art piece that reflects on the genocide of originary peoples from Patagonia and Pampa in the military campaigns called "The Conquest of the Desert" carried out by the Argentine Government between 1878 and 1885. In order to create this piece, a reading of different types of documents belonging to the social sciences (anthropology, historical revisionism, linguistic studies, musicology, etc) has been carried out, where the phenomenon conquest of the desert/genocide of originary peoples has been analyzed from different approaches. Field recordings used here have been made by anthropologists and musicologists, which contain sound practices of those survivors and/or their descendants. Some recording date from the early 20th century made on wax cylinders, others are more recent recordings. Many of these recordings are private heritage of European museums and many others are freely accessible.