The inaugural episode of Palette Sonic features Buenos Aires-based composer and sound artist Victoria Barca, aka Vic Bang. For Palette Sonic 01, Vic recorded an exclusive, unreleased sound piece - an original electroacoustic composition built around recent synth explorations, processing, and subtle vocal sampling. Vic works with sound as a malleable material, combining recorded sounds, synthesis, sampling, and micro-rhythms. Her practice also extends into video and sculpture, with these different elements often informing one another.

When you have an abstract idea, how do you decide what form it should take? How do you know whether it needs to become a sound, an object, an image, or something else?

In general, the ideas that come to me almost always have something to do with a technical element. They tend to emerge from a particular process or tool that I want to explore, rather than from a narrative. I don’t usually start with an abstract idea and then decide whether it should become sound, image, or object.
From the beginning, ideas tend to present themselves in their own form: as sounds, images, music, or even a combination of several things. The narrative or more symbolic interpretation comes later, as I develop the idea and begin to understand what lies behind the material or the process.
I really like the idea that there is a kind of technical sensibility — something connected to learning new tools or processes, and to the way they resonate within us and expand our ways of thinking and making.

You work with sound, sculpture, installations, and other formats. What allows you to move between different media without feeling that you’re leaving your own artistic language behind?

On the one hand, I feel that sound is my primary material. But sound can expand into other realms, such as image, object, sculpture, or installation. I don’t see these other media as necessarily independent languages. Rather, they acquire meaning in relation to sound and to one another, eventually becoming part of the same universe.

Many of your works begin with sounds, textures, or materials you encounter in the world around you. How do you decide what is worth developing into a work?

I wouldn’t say that my work begins directly with materials that I find, but rather with reinterpretations of the sounds and images around me. When I use recorded sounds in my compositions, for example, I don’t usually work with field recordings. Instead, I record specific objects and then modify and process them until the sound becomes an instrument or takes on musical qualities.
With images, I often use elements around me as references or sources of inspiration — for example, the ornaments found in the city’s architecture — but I always try to reinterpret them in some way and introduce some kind of movement, whether through sound or animation. In a way, static images create a certain tension for me, and I feel the need to add another dimension to them.

How do you know when a work is finished? What tells you that it’s time to stop modifying it?

In my case, I know it’s time to finish a work when it starts to become too dense and moves too far away from the sense of surprise or novelty that came with the original idea. I tend to overload my compositions with elements, for example, so a lot of the work often consists of removing things rather than adding them.
I also think that works often need time and space. Sometimes you have to leave them aside for weeks or even months, or work on them slowly, so they can develop more naturally without being forced. Coming back to a work after some time allows you to hear or see it differently and recognize what it really needs and what is unnecessary. It can also allow you to return with more interesting ideas, having developed further yourself in the meantime.
I also think there are many ways of working on a piece. Sometimes it simply means carrying it with you in your thoughts and having it present in your day-to-day life. Working on a piece doesn’t only happen in the moment when you are physically manipulating the material itself — it can also involve a more internal process and the way your relationship with the work develops over time.

Which parts of your practice have nothing to do with inspiration? Are there any routines, habits, or systems that help you keep working even when inspiration isn’t there?

I find it quite difficult to sit down and make music or do something artistic when I’m not motivated — in this case, I would probably replace “inspiration” with “motivation.”
But I do like to stay in daily contact with things that can feed into my practice, whether through studying, curiosity, listening, and so on. At the same time, there are many occasions when I force myself to work even without motivation, either because of work or simply through my own will — and in general, it ends up producing results.