Retablo Sound System (2025)
Retablo Sound System is a sound and light installation, constructed mainly from recycled cardboard. It implements an audiovisual composition using more than 100 LEDs and seven “screens” that project animations, synchronized with audio reproduced through seven amplified channels. Small plastic figures and toys come to life through the sequential lighting of the lights.
In spanish, the term “Retablo” refers both to altarpieces and small puppet stages. This work fuses the theatrical tradition of puppets and shadow theater (“tableau”) with the aesthetics of iconic Jamaican amplification systems, creating a hybrid and format. Both practices, with a strong DIY (Do It Yourself) imprint, converge here. This small automated theater invokes dreamlike scenes that function as a possible territory for confronting one's own and collective fears in these uncertain and turbulent times.
The installation is constructed from cardboard, mostly recovered from the street. The material was cut and carved using both hand tools and a laser cutter, resulting in an integration of traditional craftsmanship and digital manufacturing.
Retablo Sound System emerged from a project originally designed for workshops, based on the challenge of using digital electronics to create light animation devices. Children and adults use a shoebox, a microcontroller, a joystick, and a strip of Pixel LEDs to animate figures and toys from their own collections. The opening of the installation in Buenos Aires was accompanied by these workshops.
This piece and its associated activities seek to generate a “digital update” of philosophical toys, conceived as simple cinema machines that integrate cardboard and silicon. Their purpose is to seek some truth in the projected light, offering a reflective counterpart in a time saturated with deceptive screens.
Retablo Sound System was exhibited for the first time in the exhibition “Rituales Tecnológicos” in August 2025 (Centro Cultural Kirchner, Buenos Aires).
Single Board Computer running Bitwig Studio DAW with the AV score. The integrated Arduino board controlls the 96 pixel LEDs. A custom cardboard case was specially made for the exhibition
Image taken while prototyping the “main scene”, showing the characters and the custom built electronics that drive the high power LEDs
As part of the exhibition, three free animation workshops were held, based on the light animation technique used in the installation.
These workshops were held in collaboration with Flexible Laboratorio.
The first implementation of this project took place during my participation in the Multiplica Festival in Luxembourg (February 2023). The potential demonstrated by the interface in contact with children led to further development.
