Synchrony (2013–2025)

Concert for 4 pianos and 10 hands

Performers: Andrea Morales Montes, Katya Trejo Smith, Diana Patricia Guzmán, Daniela Díaz Almeyda, Roberto Carlos Ramírez Figueroa.

Coordination: Mauricio Ramos Viterbo and the Faculty of Music of UNAM

Score Transcriptions: Adrian Bracho

Pianos: Casa Garrido

Synchrony (2013–2025) is a research project by artist Lorena Mal that explores the boundaries of "live" time through the encounter of two systems that measure its passing, where rhythm is both biological and musical, and tempo, pace, or heartbeat are measured alike in "beats per minute" (BPM) in both music and biological sciences.

For the exhibition Pulsar, a selection of compositions will be activated in a series of events for 4 pianos and 10 hands (5 performers), consisting of different pulses or temporalities that integrate heart rate data from numerous living organisms found in scientific literature, as polyrhythmic relationships that allow the experience of invisible bodies passing through states of sleep, hibernation, calm, or activity.

By altering the limits of the metronome and stretching the human capacity for interpretation and perception, Synchrony formulates its own meanings of ‘movement,’ ‘chords,’ and ‘scales’ within a new range in which it is possible to move and listen—from 1 bpm to 1511 bpm (from a calm clam, Mesodesma mactroides, to a stressed shrew, Suncus murinus)—among 356 other intermediate species that establish unexpected encounters and intervals of silence, making the act of listening an intersubjective process of reciprocity, even an involuntary one.