Protests, Rituals, Deconstructions – the Borderland of USA and Mexico in the Contemporary Art of Sound
Antoni Michnik
antek_antek@poczta.onet.plInstitute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2279-2374
Abstract
An essay on contemporary works on the art of sound dealing with the USA–Mexico borderland. The point of departure is, on the one hand, Borderwall as Architecture. A Manifesto for the U.S.–Mexico Boundary, a book by Ronald Rael, and, on the other, the tradition of reflections (Gloria Anzaldúa) and artistic praxis (Guillermo Gómez-Peña), which shaped contemporary, dynamic border studies. The reasoning focuses on artistic praxis using borderland recordings (Ultra-Red, José Manuel Flores, Glenn Weyant), material objects found along the borderland (Guillermo Galindo, Glenn Weyant), and trans-border experiments conducted with radio art (Cog•nate Collective, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer). These studies were placed within a wider context of works concerning the USA–Mexico border as well as those on the art of sound art referring to other borders and borderlands. Fundamental research questions concern the possibility of deconstructing borders as well as undermining the policies of militarizing them by means of the art of sound.
Keywords:
borderland, sound art, border, sound studies, artivismReferences
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987.
Google Scholar
„Art Feature: Border Cantos”, Western Humanities Review. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://www.westernhumanitiesreview.com/art-feature-border-cantos/.
Google Scholar
ArtLab, Harvard.edu, Valeria Luiselli, Echoes from the Borderlands. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://artlab.harvard.edu/echoes-from-the-borderland/
Google Scholar
Bayuelo, Mónica. „Ruidos y Silencios en La Espera Migrante: Ambientes Sonoros Y Racialización de la Escucha en La Comunidad Haitiana en Tapachula”, Encartes, Vol. 7, Núm 13 (2024): 73–99. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. DOI: 10.29340/en.v7n13.349. https://revista.encartes.mx/index.php/encartes/article/view/349/722
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29340/en.v7n13.349
Google Scholar
Biserna, Elena. „Soundborderscapes: Lending A Critical Ear to the Border”, antiatlas journal, nr 2, (2017). Dostęp: 20.01.2026. ww.antiatlas-journal.net/anti-atlas/02-soundborderscapes-lending-a-critical-ear-to-the-border/
Google Scholar
Casillas, D. Ines. „Listening to the Border: “’2487’: Giving Voice in Diaspora” and the Sound Art of Luz María Sánchez”, Sounding Out. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://soundstudiesblog.com/2011/07/04/listening-to-the-border-2487-giving-voice-in-diaspora-and-the-sound-art-of-luz-maria-sanchez/
Google Scholar
Chávez, Alex E., Sounds of Crossing. Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño, Durham–London: Duke University Press, 2017.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822372202
Google Scholar
CityLAB UCLA, WPA 2.0. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://www.citylab.ucla.edu/projects/wpa-20
Google Scholar
dell’Agnese, Ellena, Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, „Borderscapes: From Border Landscapes to Border Aesthetics”, Geopolitics, Vol. 20, Iss. 1, (2015): 4–13. DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2015.1014284
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2015.1014284
Google Scholar
Falke, Stefan, La Frontiera: Artists along the US–Mexican Border. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://borderartists.com/
Google Scholar
Flores, José Manuel, Border Soundscapes: Latinidad, Belonging, and Sense of Place in the Paso del Norte Region.the Paso del Norte Region. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://scholarworks.utep.edu/open_etd/4236/
Google Scholar
Flores, José Manuel, Dolores Inés Casillas, „Echoes in Transit: Loudly Waiting at the Paso del Norte Border Region”, Sounding Out!. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://soundstudiesblog.com/2023/09/
Google Scholar
Flores, José Manuel, Lucía Durá, „The Border Soundscapes Project”, Kairos, Vol. 26, Iss 1, (2021). Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/26.1/praxis/flores-dura/index.html
Google Scholar
Greeley, Robin, „Participatory Aesthetics at the Border”. W: The Future is LatinX, red. Yulia Tikhonova, 16-19.Windham: Eastern Connecticut State University, 2020. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. www.easternct.edu/big-read/_documents/the-future-is-latinx-catalog.pdf
Google Scholar
Gómez-Peña, Guillermo, The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems, and Loqueras for the End of the Century. San Francisco: City Light Publishers, 1996.
Google Scholar
Kala Art Institute. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://www.kala.org/event/guillermo-galindo-sonic-borders-iii/
Google Scholar
Krause, Bernie, Voices of the Wild: Animal songs, human din, and the call to save natural soundscapes. New Haven: Yale University Press 2025.
Google Scholar
Kun, Josh D., „The Aural Border”, Theatre Journal, Vol. 52, Iss. 1, (2000): 11.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2000.0016
Google Scholar
Kun, Josh D., Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Google Scholar
LaBelle, Brandon, Sonic Agency, London: Goldsmith Press, 2018.
Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille, Brutalizm. Tłum. Oskar Hedemann. Kraków: Karakter, 2024.
Google Scholar
Michnik, Antoni, „Fabryka wspólnoty – o wystawie „Critical Constellations of Audio-Machine in Mexico””, Glissando. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://glissando.pl/relacje/fabryka-wspolnoty-o-wystawie-critical-constellations-of-audio-machine-in-mexico/
Google Scholar
Michnik, Antoni, „Chessboard-tenement house? Sixty-four fragments about curating soundart”, Glissando Nr 43, (2023): 16–27.
Google Scholar
Pfeifer, Michelle, „Intelligent Borders? Securitizing Smartphones in the European Border Regime”, Culture Machine (2021). Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://culturemachine.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Michelle-Pfeifer.pdf
Google Scholar
Pfeifer, Michelle, „„The Native Ear” Accented Testimonial Desire and Asylum”. W: Thinking with an Accent: Toward a New Object, Method, and Practice, red. Pooja Rangan i in., 192–207. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.148.k
Google Scholar
Pfeifer, Michelle, „Your Voice is (Not) Your Passport”, Sounding Out!. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://soundstudiesblog.com/2023/06/12/your-voice-is-not-your-passport/
Google Scholar
Rael, Ronald, Borderwall as Architecture. A Manifesto for the U.S. – Mexico Boundary. Oakland, University of California Press 2017.
Google Scholar
Russell, Emma K., Poppy de Souza, „Counter-mapping the mobile border: Racial surveillance and data justice in spaces of disappearance”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Nr 41, (2023): 494–512.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758231179224
Google Scholar
Sánchez, Luza María, 2487. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. www.diaspora2487.org/
Google Scholar
Sun Eidsheim, Nina, „Rewriting Algorithms for Just Recognition. From Digital Aural Redlining to Accent Activism”. W: Thinking with an Accent: Toward a New Object, Method, and Practice, red. Pooja Rangan i in., 134–150. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.148.h
Google Scholar
Szendy, Peter, „Nadzorować i słuchać”. Tłum. Jakub Momro. Teksty Drugie, nr 3, (2025): 208–235.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18318/td.2024.3.13
Google Scholar
Szlachcicowa, Irena, „Borderscapes – krajobrazy granic jako nowa perspektywa badań”, Politeja Nr 1, (2019): 15–29.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.16.2019.58.02
Google Scholar
Ultra-Red, Five Protocols for Organised Listening. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. www.ultrared.org/uploads/2012-Five_Protocols.pdf
Google Scholar
Weitzel, Michelle D., „Audializing migrant bodies: Sound and security at the border”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 49, Nr 6 (2018); 421-437. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010618795788
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010618795788
Google Scholar
Western, Tom, Listening with Displacement Sound, Citizenship, and Disruptive Representations of Migration, „Migration and Society”, Vol. 3, Nr 1, (2020): 294–309.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2020.030128
Google Scholar
Weyant, Glenn. Dostęp: 20.01.2026. https://sonicanta.bandcamp.com/album/john-cages-433-border-wall-session
Google Scholar
Authors
Antoni Michnikantek_antek@poczta.onet.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2279-2374
Antoni Michnik – PhD at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, culture historian, performer. Founding member of research-performative group Grupa ETC. From 2013 to 2024, editor of the Glissando magazine. He published i. a. in Dialog, Konteksty, Kultura Popularna, Kultura Współczesna, Kwartalnik Filmowy, Polish Theatre Journal, Rocznik Historii Sztuki, Ruch Muzyczny, Zeszyty Literackie.
Statistics
Abstract views: 45PDF downloads: 42
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Antoni Michnik

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Antoni Michnik, Aisteach – a Potential Avantgarde , Konteksty: Vol. 349 No. 2 (2025): Geografia wyobrażona: Irlandia / Beckett w Brazylii / Between.Pomiędzy / Perspektywy Nowych Mediów

