Nowadays, it doesn’t happen often that you watch or experience something that feels completely new. The internet, for all the advantages it has given us, has created an uncontrollable flood of creative content. Ideas, concepts, lifestyles. We’re saturated, in a way. So the moment you finally encounter something genuinely new, you just know. You know you’ve never been part of anything quite like it. And that’s exactly how it feels to witness one of Lolo y Sosaku‘s performances.
The Barcelona-based duo exists somewhere between industrial sound, installation, machinery, performance, sculpture and kinetic art. Somewhere where chaos and energy share the same room, crashing through the well-known boundaries of what art can be. That might sound abstract if you don’t know Lolo and Sosaku yet.
So, to be a little more specific: imagine a big, dark space. In the centre, four tables are positioned to form a square. On them: metal objects, DJ booths, sound boxes, a confusion of cables. Inside the square, Lolo and Sosaku do their thing, dressed in black, sometimes a long coat, sometimes just a simple jumper. Sosaku smokes cigarette after cigarette while the crowd presses against the tables to get closer. The sounds grow louder. And then, somewhere in the middle, something moves. A mechanical dog, humping, clanking against the floor. Beams of light. Fog. Sparks. We could go on. But that would take too long. What Lolo and Sosaku are really investigating is materiality, mysticism, the technological age, the unknown and, in their own way, biology.
This month, the two have multiple performances in Australia. Everything is sold out. When we speak to them, Sosaku is already there getting everything ready, so the time difference makes a joint call impossible. Instead, we get just Lolo, who is currently standing outside a pharmacy somewhere in Barcelona, shopping for a new pair of glasses before his flight. He’s going for a very grandpa style, he tells us. He likes it, because his hair is cool enough to pull it off. Then we get started: talking about Lolo y Sosaku, about chaos, Evangelion and pirates. About a weird neighbour, and about what sound will look like in 400 years.
AMELIE BACHERT Okay Lolo, let’s start, you still have to pick up your glasses.
LOLO Yes, yes, let’s do it.
AB I’ve heard that you have a really crazy studio in Barcelona, with materials, machines and robots laying around. What’s the strangest object we could find there?
L The strangest object is Cisco. Cisco is our neighbour. He’s a metal worker and a super strange, David Lynch-like character. He belongs to another world. We mainly work with the doors open to the street, so people sometimes just enter. Sometimes we don’t know Cisco is in the studio, and then we turn around and he’s there. Sometimes he just starts playing the piano.
AB Does Cisco ever enter the studio and think, what the hell is going on here?
L Never. Cisco is still the strangest thing there. But you can also find body parts made of plastic, arms that look kind of real, mixed in with the metal things. And little boxes full of cigarette butts. Sosaku has a very huge collection. Sometimes he picks them up from the street.
AB I’ve seen him smoke six or more cigarettes at once during your performances, so that makes sense. What makes the relationship between Sosaku and you so special?
L It’s difficult to explain. It’s just special. It’s super deep. We’re brothers. But also enemies from a time very, very long ago, from a very old human generation. Our relationship is complex and super strange, like energies hitting each other. We go through bad times too. The past two years were really tough. But now we’re better than ever.
AB Phases like that are important to evolve. That’s very human.
L Yeah, you know, we fail in the machines and we fail in the friendship sometimes.
AB Do you think the machines represent your energy in that sense?
L Definitely. In a way, they are our daughters, our sons. Strong phases, strong victories, strong surprises. Because sometimes we are looking for something that doesn’t happen, and instead things that are different from everything we expected happen.
AB You said Sosaku and you are enemies from a very long time ago. Do you remember what kind of past you shared?
L I think he was a pirate. I was on a ship with a lot of gold. Something happened. I don’t remember what. But we were longtime enemies, and then we became friends. It was on the sea, on the ocean. Surrounded by water.
AB I’m always wondering whether I believe in past lives.
L It’s impossible to think all life is entirely new. Everything is connected. We share the same materials. All lives from this world, all connected.
AB Then, thinking about it, we’re connected with the machines in your studio as well.
L It’s all connected. Impossible to disconnect.
AB At what point do you think a sculpture stops being an object and becomes a creature?
L In the last five years, we have been developing more complex things. Creating something very related to a fight, because you are trying to make a life form out of something that is not. The behaviour of this creature is never what you expect. Sometimes you have to force it. If you can’t, the pieces start falling down. You have to assemble again and solder until you get to very aggressive mechanisms, with a lot of heat and strong power. There can be a lot of suffering, sweat and desperation. And then, because of all of this, something gets attached to the machine.
AB What gets attached?
L The other day, we had a gig at Apollo. There was this robot that wasn’t finished yet. I found it on the floor, trying to make a mechanism to keep it there. It looked like it was trying to stand up but couldn’t. It looked like it was suffering. And then Sosaku came and said: okay, this is so nice. Let’s keep it like this.
AB You said your robots are your children, your daughters, your sons. What kind of characters do they have?
L Above all, we respect them. Sometimes they have a very short life, like one or two days, sometimes just one performance. And then they break down and transform into another creature, another presence. They are changing all the time.
AB So they’re being reborn?
L More always in transformation. Constructing and deconstructing them. We’re also looking for chaos. But with machines it’s difficult, because the motors are so perfect. We have to build a whole system to get from perfection to imperfection, to chaos. Chaos is our master.
AB Chaos is hard to balance. Are you giving chaos its own room to act, or are you trying to control it?
L No, no. Chaos is welcome. All chaos is welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Aleatory, welcome. Error, welcome. All the things general society is trying to avoid. We love unpredictable things.
AB Are you ever scared of the chaos going too far?
L No, no, no, no, it’s beautiful. Diving into this, being surrounded by this. Sometimes with these super loud and crazy sounds, we are in the middle of a performance and Sosaku asks me: Lolo, where does this sound come from? I say, I don’t know. And then he says, okay, let’s keep it, it’s beautiful. We’re never scared of losing control.
AB You just said it yourself, you work with all these loud, crazy sounds. If you had a specific sound representing you, what would it be?
L Us as an entity, or me and Sosaku personally?
AB Both.
L Sosaku is the sound a mosquito makes in your ear. The smmmmm. If you continue, you get into an electricity, but not a good one. Like when there’s a bad contact and something starts to burn, to smell.
AB Like a charger that burns through because there was too much electricity?
L Yeah. Right before everything burns. My sound is the cars in the city. I love motor sounds so deeply. Sometimes I just listen to F1 V10 motor sounds. So beautiful, wow.
AB And as an entity?
L It’s the sound of the explosion in Evangelion, the manga series. When the angels come to earth and the Evangelion fight against them. If we had to choose one sound to describe us, it would be that one.
AB I love it. I was actually at one of your performances in Barcelona, Ruido Jondo, where you fused flamenco dance, music and industrial sound.
L Oh, you were there?
AB Yes! It was incredible. I even had tears in my eyes. I think I would choose the sound of the flamenco dancer’s shoes tapping on the floor as my own sound.
L That was a beautiful moment.
AB It really was. What goes through your mind during a performance like that?
L Biology.
AB Biology?
L Yes. We are all one thing in those moments. One whole thing. I don’t mean it in a hippie way, but it’s super deep. The energy surrounds all of us, passes through you, goes to me, goes to Carmen, the flamenco dancer, dancing to this sound, amplifying, crossing all over. The architecture, the crowd, everything is connected. It’s so beautiful.
AB I remember. It felt like being in one big organism.
L Totally.
AB During your performances your robots also move through the crowd. Do you trust more in humans or in machines?
L Machines, obviously. And also, I prefer a machine to cut my finger. If a machine cuts my finger, it’s my own fault. If a human cuts my finger, it’s horrible human stuff.
AB Do you remember the first moment you fell in love with machines?
L Sosaku loves insects. They have a very machine-like behaviour, very mechanic. He loves spiders and scarabs, he collects all of them. I think that’s how he fell in love with machines. Me, I grew up surrounded by big men repairing cars, with oil on their hands. I remember being very sick, almost dying, when I was around three years old, lying in the back of a car. The sound of the motor around me, watching the lights of the city above me. This sound followed me all my life.
AB That’s very personal. In my opinion, the two of you almost seem like super villains, behind your desks, with all the machines, the loud sounds, the sparks and the smoke. What element would you like to control?
L Well, if you asked Sosaku, he would make a joke and say cigarettes. Then he would say water. But I know he would actually like to control electricity. Just like me.
AB Again, that makes sense. Electricity is everywhere when it comes to the two of you. Do you think humanity is designing technology or is technology designing humanity?
L Right now, humanity is lost. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on. Nobody is controlling anything.
AB I think so too. Honestly, I also don’t know what the fuck is going on, so I’m part of the problem, I guess. How do you think sound and technology will look in 400 years?
L It’s beautiful. It’s an echo. A total silence, emptiness. Then, since it’s an echo from hundreds of years ago, it comes growing and growing, getting near you, becoming a very loud sound of beams, motors, machinery, animals, all together. All passing through and going far away until it becomes an echo again. Never-ending.