The Realm of Unmaking
Sound Installation: by Pablo Leñero Archer & CultivArte
Plate 56 of the Codex Borgia, It depicts the back-to-back dual deities of death and life: Mictlantecuhtli (left) and Quetzalcoatl / Ehecatl (right)
Mictlan is an interactive generative sound installation created entirely with recorded loops of Indigenous Mesoamerican instruments that explores the Mexica philosophy of life and death, a cycle of cosmic creation and regeneration. Within this sound ecosystem, individual loops recur randomly or triggered by users, ensuring that the number of sonic configurations is near infinite and thus what you are hearing now will never repeat again. Like life itself, each moment is a fleeting, borrowed spark destined to dissolve back into the earth.
Departing from Western concepts of moral judgment or salvation, the Mexica understood post-mortem destinations as determined solely by the manner of death:
- Tonatiuhichan: The radiant sky realm of the Sun, reserved for fallen warriors and women who died in childbirth.
- Tlalocan: The verdant, water-drenched paradise claimed by rain deities for those chosen by drowning, lightning strikes, or fluid ailments.
- Mictlan: The subterranean journey across nine levels reserved for those who die of natural causes. It is a four-year passage that systematically strips the traveler of flesh, identity, and form so their borrowed vital warmth (tonalli) may be returned to the earth, allowing new life to be generated.
