Aural Fragmentation is the fourth and final installment of season two of Storefront: Broadcasts. This special episode is produced and sound-designed by Mexican artist, researcher, and community organizer Jerónimo Reyes-Retana. He expands upon the ideas explored in our previous episode, Fugitive Terrain, such as  the tension of water bodies as contested sites of catastrophe, conflict, and violence, but also as frontiers of freedom and retreat.

Aural Fragmentation compiles a selection of ideas, provocations, and speculations stemming from a unique encounter at the easternmost edge of the Mexico-US borderlands. In this hidden corner of Tamaulipas, an oyster field vital to the local economy of the marginalized community of El Campo Pesquero de Playa Bagdad is now in alarming proximity to the SpaceX launch port at Boca Chica, Texas. In this context, confluence extends beyond the meeting of the waters of the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico, creating a threshold not only between Mexico and the US but also between the so-called Third World and the First, inviting reflection on the emergence of new frontiers in outer space.

AUDIO CREDITS

Sound design, mixing, and editing by Jerónimo Reyes-Retana.
Text written by Jerónimo Reyes-Retana, read by Ceci Bastida.

Testimonies by Reyna San Juan Gabino.

Field recordings by Jerónimo Reyes-Retana.

Archive material collected from SpaceX’s YouTube channel.

“El Cascabel,” composed by Lorenzo Barcelata, performed by Arcadio Hidalgo and Grupo Mono Blanco.