Cabosanroque is an artistic duo formed by Laia Torrents Carulla (Barcelona, 1976) and Roger Aixut Sampietro (Barcelona, 1975). Founded in Barcelona in 2001 as a musical collective and operating as a duo since 2012, their interdisciplinary practice centres on sound and its physical, performative and spatial dimensions. Their work moves between visual art, experimental music, installation and the performing arts, and is characterised by the use of mechanical devices, automated systems, objects and sound-generating technologies.
This movement between the stage, installation and visual art has remained a defining feature of their practice. Rather than adhering to a single format, their projects take different forms according to the ideas they explore, ranging from installations and sound sculptures to stage works, spatial interventions and participatory devices.
Throughout their career, Cabosanroque have investigated the relationships between sound, object, space and spectator. Their projects address subjects including error, memory, destruction, the relationship between nature and artifice, war, structures of power and collective creation. The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía situates their practice around sound and its performative capacities, as well as the questioning of exhibition spaces, their formats and the position of the audience.
Their work has been presented internationally at institutions and contexts including the Centre Pompidou and the Cité de l'Architecture in Paris, the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), the Fonoteca Nacional de México, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Schaubude Berlin and Théâtre Garonne in Toulouse, as well as at festivals including Sónar, Grec Festival, Temporada Alta and Manifesta.
History
Cabosanroque was founded in Barcelona in 2001 as a musical collective, described by critic and curator Arnau Horta as an "orchestra of experimental anarcho-lutherie". The project initially brought together musicians from both academic and self-taught backgrounds and was based, among other premises, on the idea that none of its members should play the instrument they had mastered, encouraging intuitive forms of composition and improvisation.
During its early years, the collective grew to as many as nine members. Its members included Laia Torrents, Roger Aixut, Pepe Seguí, Ramon Garriga, Alberto Mezquíriz, Núria Carrera, Carles Martínez-Almoyna and Oriol Luna.
The number of members gradually decreased until the project assumed its current form as a duo. This process coincided with a diversification of methodologies and languages: although music and sound continued to provide a common thread, the project increasingly incorporated poetry, object theatre, performance, literature and other areas of artistic practice.
From the outset, Cabosanroque built instruments from found objects and materials. Horta has associated this early period with the influence of Alfred Jarry's pataphysics and a playful, absurdist form of engineering, with machines made from washing machines, sewing machines, obsolete telephones, electromechanical toys and other discarded everyday objects. This machine-based practice preceded their later expansion into automation, installation and visual art. The collective's name derives from one of these early instruments, built by Aixut from a trunk found in the street that still bore a label from the transatlantic liner Cabo San Roque, which travelled between Montevideo and Barcelona.
Their experimentation with self-built instruments gradually led to automation and the development of musical machines. Early stage projects included La Caixeta, Música a màquina and Torn de nit. For the latter, they repurposed components from an industrial biscuit-production line in Granollers to build the Orquestra Mecànica de la França Xica, composed of pistons, solenoid valves, pulleys, motors and conveyor belts.
During this period, the project gradually shifted from the concert format towards the performing arts, sound installation and the construction of autonomous devices. In 2012, Cabosanroque became a duo formed by Torrents and Aixut.
In 2010, an encounter with Carles Santos during the Procesión del Silencio in Murcia initiated a collaboration that resulted in Maquinofòbiapianolera, a project in which Santos's piano was set against the mechanical orchestra designed by Torrents, Aixut and Pepe Seguí.
At the 2012 Grec Festival, they presented El run-run del nyigo-nyigo, extending the collaboration with the Orquestra Mecànica de la França Xica to Pascal Comelade, Pierre Bastien and Joan Saura.
That same year, they undertook a residency at the Fonoteca Nacional de México, where they produced Los árboles aullaron, a mechanical sound installation constructed from objects and materials collected in markets, factories and other locations in Mexico.
In 2015, Arts Santa Mònica in Barcelona presented the retrospective La cobla patafísica 2015–2001, curated by Moisés Puente, bringing together machines, instruments and installations produced during the project's first fourteen years. The exhibition was accompanied by the first monograph devoted to Cabosanroque.
Cabosanroque have been resident artists at the Fundació Lluís Coromina since 2015.
Artistic practice
Cabosanroque's practice approaches sound not only as musical material but also as a physical, spatial and performative phenomenon. Their installations combine sculpture, objects, motors, mechanical and pneumatic systems, automation, electronics, light and software.
Torrents's background in music and industrial engineering and Aixut's training in architecture inform a methodology in which conceptual research and technical experimentation develop in parallel. Technology is used as a tool for constructing the specific systems required by each project.
The physical generation of sound is a constant throughout their work. Automation, which initially arose from the need to mechanically reproduce particular musical actions, eventually became one of the central languages of their practice.
Another recurring element is the relationship between artwork and spectator. Many of their installations dispense with performers and position the audience within the device itself, altering conventions associated with both the theatrical stage and the exhibition space. The spectator's movement, the visible or invisible source of sound, and tensions between auditory and visual perception form part of the dramaturgy of the works.
The coexistence of installation, performance, music and the performing arts has continued following their transition from musical collective to artistic duo. Their projects can be presented in museums and art centres, theatres, music festivals, public spaces and biennials, and frequently transfer devices and strategies associated with one of these contexts into another.
This deliberately undisciplined condition can be understood as an expanded-field practice: sound does not function as a closed disciplinary category but as one of the means through which the works establish relationships with architecture, time, the body and the spectator's imagination. This openness also accounts for their circulation between contemporary art museums, theatres, music festivals, archives, sound archives and literary contexts.
Since the mid-2010s, their practice has also intensified its engagement with literature. Between 2016 and 2023, they developed a trilogy of stage installations based on works by Joan Brossa, Jacint Verdaguer and Mercè Rodoreda. This line of work subsequently continued through projects connected to Pedro Calderón de la Barca, the figure of Don Juan and Blai Bonet.
Error is another recurring concept in their work. The duo use failure, deviation and the interruption of normative systems as compositional materials and as mechanisms for questioning cultural and social structures. This investigation is particularly evident in Sous les violons, la plage!, Estadi and Fail Louder.
Works and projects
La Caixeta — 2006 One of Cabosanroque's early stage projects, based on self-built instruments and mechanisms. It was presented at contexts including the Grec Festival in Barcelona, Robodock in Amsterdam and the Incanti festival in Turin.
Música a màquina — 2006–2007 A stage and musical project centred on a washing machine. It was presented at Barcelona's Festival NEO and subsequently in other international contexts, including the Frankfurt Book Fair and Sónar.
Torn de nit — 2009 A project constructed from components recovered from an industrial biscuit-production line in Granollers. Cabosanroque transformed pistons, solenoid valves, pulleys, motors and conveyor belts into the Orquestra Mecànica de la França Xica.
Torn de nit was co-produced by Cabosanroque, Centro Párraga and Temporada Alta and was subsequently presented at Mercat de les Flors.
Bestiari — 2011 A performance built around an orchestra of mechanical animals made from everyday objects, motors and repurposed mechanisms. The project reinterpreted texts from bestiaries of different periods and cultures.
It was presented at Fira Mediterrània de Manresa and received first prize in the Innovació i Cultura Popular programme of the Fundació Jaume Casademont.
Los árboles aullaron — 2012 A mechanical and automated sound installation produced during a residency at the Fonoteca Nacional de México. Constructed from bottles, pots, tubes, metal components and other materials found in Mexican markets, factories and urban spaces, it took the form of mechanical vegetation capable of producing sound through pneumatic and electromagnetic mechanisms. The installation was presented at the Fonoteca Nacional in 2012 and later at Vive Latino.
El run-run del nyigo-nyigo — 2012 A project developed from the Orquestra Mecànica de la França Xica with compositions and interventions by Carles Santos, Pascal Comelade, Pierre Bastien and Joan Saura. It was co-produced by Le Lieu Unique in Nantes and the Grec Festival.
Maquinofòbiapianolera — 2012–2013 A project made with Carles Santos that set the piano as a historical acoustic machine against Cabosanroque's mechanical and automated orchestra. The work toured internationally and was presented, among other venues, at the Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris in Mexico City in 2013.
La cobla patafísica 2001 — 2015
A retrospective exhibition presented at Arts Santa Mònica in Barcelona, bringing together instruments, machines and installations produced since the collective's foundation. The programme included interventions and concerts with Pierre Bastien, Carles Santos, Pascal Comelade and Truna, among other collaborators. The exhibition led to the first monograph devoted to Cabosanroque.
No em va fer Joan Brossa — 2016 The first part of the trilogy of stage installations dedicated to Catalan writers. Based on Joan Brossa's early work and stage poetry, it uses everyday objects, automated systems, sound and movement without the conventional presence of actors or puppeteers. It was co-produced by Cabosanroque, the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, Temporada Alta, the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, Fundació Joan Brossa and Fundació Lluís Coromina, and subsequently toured several European venues as well as Hospicio Cabañas during the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico.
Ursonate Karaoke — 2017