FLOATING SOUND GALLERY

Vienna

Manuel Rocha

Born in 1963 in Mexico City, Manuel Rocha Iturbide is a composer and a transdisciplinary and intermedia artist. His creative lines go through synesthesia, conceptualism, immersion, chance, listening to the environment, complexity, improvisation and constant experimentation with the hybridization of different media and languages.
He studied composition at the ENM in the University of Mexico (1981-1989) and photography at the Taller de los lunes workshop with Pedro Meyer (1985-1989). In 1991 he finishes an MFA in electronic music and composition at Mills College, Oakland California. In Paris, he takes a one-year course in composition and computer music at IRCAM, where he studies with Bryan Fernyhough (1991-92). In 1992 he starts his doctoral thesis in the field of Science and Technologie of the Arts at the University of Paris VIII with a thesis related to quantum physics, sound and art, and he worked as a researcher at IRCAM developing Gist.
His music has been played through the American, European and Asian continents. He has been the recipient of different residencys, Japan Foundation in Tokyo, FONCA in Caracas Venezuela, Cite International des Arts in Paris, etc. He has obtained important prices with his electroacoustic works such as Festival Synthese Bourges, Ars electronica and Giga Hertz. He has worked also as a curator, being the co-founder and curator of the international sound art festival in Mexico City (1999-2002). He curated important sound art exhibitions such as Audio Elf in Colone Germany (2006), Sonoplastia at the MACO Museum (Oaxaca Mexico 2014), and Modos de Oír at the Laboratorio de Arte Alameda Museum (CDMX 2018). His music has been played by important international ensembles like the Arditti String Quartet, performers like Aki Takahashi, and in important venues such as Festival de Synthése in Bourges France, Ircam, festival Métamorphoses in Paris (GRM), Tokyo Opera Concert Hall, Red Cat (Los Angeles), Bellas Artes (Mexico), etc. Some of his artistic works belong to important art collections such as the MUAC museum and Colección Jumex in Mexico City and Segnigi Collection in Miami Florida.
Rocha Iturbide is a researcher on different aesthetic fields and on the history of electroacoustic music and sound art in Mexico and Latin America. He has published numerous essays and two books. He teaches currently at the UAM Lerma University in the field of Digital Arts and composition at UNAM.