Coancoan, the name of the Cofán “trickster” in oral legends, is the name given to this 24-hour binaural sound piece. I imagine the trickster as the never-ending “cosmic joke.” The piece was recorded on a canoe, on lake Garza-cocha in Ecuador and taken from a single recording session from 11 March 2020 - 12 March 2020. The recording is unobstructed by any human noise; including aviation and electrical noise, and includes incredible bird songs, water sounds, monkey sounds and the caiman that hunt their prey, at night (click play below for an excerpt). The piece is played opposite it’s night/day hour, meaning when it is midnight (00:00) in the recording, it is noon (12:00) at the exhibition location.
Temporarily commissioned by the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, this sound piece was experienced in a pavilion designed in response to the Cofán way of life, oral legends (see below) and Coancoan’s sound creation. This unique collaboration with North Carolina State University Architecture students and Katherine Hogan Architects resulted in turning upside-down canoes into instruments, through the use of patented transducer sound technology. A transducer transforms energy from one form to another. In this case, vibrational energy is transferred from the SolidDrives® transducers to the wooden substrate of the canoes, transforming the wood into a sound source; sound without speakers. The etymology of the word transducer aligns with the trickster energy of the Coancoan. Transducer comes from Latin transducere/traducere which means to lead across, transfer, or carry over. From its roots: trans; across, beyond and ducere; to lead. The underworld, beyond the world inhibited by people, is the land of the Coancoan – the world connected by passageways that lead across and over to another realm.
The research trip to field record, for this project and future pieces, took place during the global pandemic spread of COVID-19, during the first half of March 2020. Artists Gordon Hempton, Nick McMahan and myself, along with the incredible Cofán team who led us into the Amazon, had little idea of the intense rapid spread of the virus while living off the grid. I myself had dreams to clue into what was happening in the rest of the world, but didn’t fully understand until I came back online on 16 March 2020. I believe the opportune convergence of the creation of this work of art in the Amazon, with what is happening in modern civilization, is one of many opportunities to acknowledge the importance of our inter-connectedness on both a physical and spiritual realm. Death has come knocking globally, as a reminder, that every interaction, every breadth, and every sound contributes to all. Listening in the dark becomes our passage to everything that is already open and waiting for us. And now, during global quarantine, the earth is quieter than it has ever been, during any of our lives - an opportunity to listen, to really listen…
Upon return from Garza-cocha lake, while at Zábalo village, Gordon Hempton and myself spent some time speaking about the experience of listening, living and recording in the remote area of the lake region. This impromptu conversation was recorded in a thatched roof community structure, on 14 March 2020. The conversation includes excerpts interwoven from 60+ hours of recording.
Excerpt from impromptu conversation below:
G.H.: “You have swallowed the trickster”
A.M.: [laugh] “It’s always there. I think everybody has the trickster, but we don’t use it enough. If we used that energy more, we would help uncover, I think, the deeper layers of each other.”
24-hour canoe recording, Garza-cocha lake, Ecuador ©Nick McMahan
“Caiman Bay,” Garza-cocha lake, Ecuador ©Nick McMahan
Architecture of Sound Public Art Pavilion rendering ©Tonic Design
Garza-cocha Lake (right pin), Zábalo Village (left pin), Equador
Recorded impromptu conversation, at Zábalo village. ©Gordon Hempton
*Wear headphones, while listening:
“The old people told us…” ©Cofán Publications
In 1991, Cofán Publications published a small pamphlet of legends. This pamphlet was handed to me by Randy Borman, upon arrival in Quito. Randy is the son of M.B. Borman who edited the publication titled, "The old people told us…” The legends themselves were tape recorded in 1957, while Enrique Criollo recited them. Enrique was about 20 years old at the time, and had become M.B. Borman’s “language helper.” Raised by his mother, after his father died in his infancy, he primarily heard these legends passed down from his mother, older brothers, aunts and uncles. The Linguistic Information Reconstruction Project made possible a collaboration with the University of Oklahoma, with the intention to “help preserve this facet of the Cofán culture.” The legends that include the coancoan can be categorized to an era after the old Cofán legends that include God and creation stories, while predating legends reflecting Spanish civilization, ayahuasca use, and Christian belief/colonization.
I took a particular interest in the coancoan and envisioned a sound piece to pay tribute to this energy:
“The presence of the Cofán “tickster” in the person of the coancoan shows a relationship with tribal mythology in other parts of North and Sound America. Though often somewhat profane to our thinking, the “trickster” legends and other legends reflect what was culturally acceptable to the Cofán.
The spirit world is very real and dominated by the coancoan, the Cofán “trickester.” He has magical powers, play tricks on people, a perverted sense of humor and has a reversed world of values. The world is perceived as a flat disk with the coancoan’s world under the world inhabited by people and therefore has its day when people have their night. There are passages between the worlds - some large enough for people to pass thru, some very small, used only for secretive contact between the worlds (coancoan’s genitals). Deep lakes and whirlpools, dwellings of the boa constrictor are often passageways between the two worlds.” 1
1. Borman, M.B. “The old people told us…” Cofán Publications, 1991.
I invite you to consider supporting the Cofán here, a group of individuals who continue to live in and protect the Amazon - a place that can feel quite deadly to humans, but not quite as deadly as a global pandemic.
I also invite you to consider supporting Quiet Parks International, an organization dedicated to saving the quiet places on earth and educating younger generations about the importance of quiet.
Gratitude to the anonymous donors who made this research trip possible. Thank you to the generosity of DPA Microphones, who sponsored the use of their binaural headset, Gordon Hempton who sponsored his custom SASS Unit and Kitchen Mastering who sponsored their transducers during the pavilion’s conceptualization process.
Above: Garza-cocha lake, Ecuador ©Nick McMahan
Below: Images taken from Garza-cocha lake to Cueva de los Tayos, Ecuador ©Nick McMahan, ©Gordon Hempton & ©Alyssa Miserendino.
[2019-2022 Temporary Installation, Raleigh, NC USA]