V.[u]nf4 presents a corpus of sounds taken from the activities of Las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte, or Trackers of El Fuerte, a group of civilians, mostly women, that search in the desert for clandestine graves, in the outskirts of Los Mochis, in the northern state of Sinaloa, in Mexico.
Noises come from recordings made during one of the journeys of Las Rastreadoras, in February 2019. Their voices through their daily interaction, their steps on the ground, the sounds of their main activity: to dig in the open field to try to find the remains of their loved ones, victims of forced disappearance. The strata of sounds of V.[u]nf_4 allude to different moments of one journey. In them appears the relationship that women engage with each other in the common search for justice and truth. The conversations contrast with other registers that document the metallic sound of the tools: shovels and picks used to dig at the points where human remains may be.
V.[u]nf_4 is a multi-layered, participatory sound work. Each layer is an 8-channel sound piece in itself. The viewers decide which layer of the sound piece should be reproduced and when, through a tablet installed in the centre of the sound setting.
V.[u]nf_4 is also comprised of a two single-channel sound sculpture.
V.[u]nf_4 includes tools shaped in a “T” form, a sculptural component that Rastreadoras de El Fuerte use to drill holes in the ground and detect the smell of human remains, which then indicates where they should dig.