--- title: Éter Lab and Auditum Fest — eme isaza description: Ten years of a multimedia laboratory in Medellín: installations, a record label, exhibitions and a listening festival. canonical_url: https://www.emeisaza.com/work/eter-lab md_url: https://www.emeisaza.com/work/eter-lab.md last_updated: 2026-11-11 --- # Éter Lab and Auditum Fest > Ten years of a multimedia laboratory in Medellín: installations, a record label, exhibitions and a listening festival. - Date: 2012–2022 - Type: laboratory / label / festival - Role: co-founder, director, curator - Location: Medellín, with work in Bogotá and Pereira - Context: Parque Explora and Exploratorio, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín (MAMM), Jardín Botánico de Medellín, Universidad de Antioquia - Sources: [Archived Auditum site](https://web.archive.org/web/20260317153420/https://auditum.eter-lab.net/) / [Auditum on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@auditumfest/videos) / [Ediciones Éter on Bandcamp](https://eterlab.bandcamp.com) / [Éter on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/eterlab) - Related in portfolio: [Ediciones Éter](https://www.emeisaza.com/#ediciones-eter) / [Auditum, plataforma de escuchas](https://www.emeisaza.com/#auditum-plataforma-de-escuchas) / [Semana de la Escucha 2017](https://www.emeisaza.com/#semana-de-la-escucha-2017) / [Auditum 2018: Semana de la Escucha](https://www.emeisaza.com/#auditum-2018-semana-de-la-escucha) / [Hipnagogia](https://www.emeisaza.com/#exposicion-hipnagogia) / [Escuchas: una selección de arte sonoro actual](https://www.emeisaza.com/#escuchas-lab3) / [Ecos](https://www.emeisaza.com/#ecos) / [Darién (LAB3)](https://www.emeisaza.com/#darien-lab3) / [Darién: simbiosis](https://www.emeisaza.com/#darien-simbiosis) / [ALEPH ℵ0](https://www.emeisaza.com/#aleph-0) / [arché](https://www.emeisaza.com/#arche) / [Microcosmos](https://www.emeisaza.com/#microcosmos) / [Valle etéreo](https://www.emeisaza.com/#valle-etereo) / [Valle silente](https://www.emeisaza.com/#valle-silente) / [Kairós](https://www.emeisaza.com/#kairos) / [Noumena](https://www.emeisaza.com/#noumena) / [Upallay](https://www.emeisaza.com/#upallay) Éter was a multimedia laboratory in Medellín, open to image, sound and technology, that worked through installations, concerts, publications and events in the city. eme co-founded it with Alejo Henao in 2012 and directed it for several years, then stayed on as curator, of the label until 2019 and of the festival until 2022. Across those ten years the work moved between curation and art direction, composition and sound design, audiovisual production and writing, often for museums and cultural institutions, mostly in Medellín and also in Bogotá and Pereira. #### Ediciones Éter The label was the lab's longest thread. Under eme's direction and curation, from 2013 to 2019, it published more than thirty releases by local and international artists working in sound art, experimental music and field recording, and it gave a home to some of eme's own records, among them *Kairós*, made in Medellín from field recordings and found objects, and *Noumena* and *Upallay* in the Akasha series. Éter still publishes today and describes itself as a listening house in the mountains. #### Auditum Auditum began in 2013 as a collective initiative between Éter and the Exploratorio of Parque Explora, to bring World Listening Day to Medellín, and eme is credited as its founder. It grew into the Semana de la Escucha, a free yearly week of concerts, installations, talks and sound actions in public space. The 2017 edition, Escuchar el suelo, ran in July across MAMM, Exploratorio and the Jardín Botánico, with a sonology panel and deep listening workshops. The 2018 edition, curated and produced by eme, brought concerts by Jorge Haro, installations by Leonel Vásquez and talks with France Jobin. Image: Poster for Escuchar el suelo, Semana de la escucha, 18 to 22 July 2017: mountains rendered as floating teal and white rock forms, with the Exploratorio and Parque Explora logos. Caption: Poster for Escuchar el suelo, the 2017 Semana de la Escucha. In 2018 the festival became a platform with a wider program across the Aburrá Valley, supported over the years by MAMM, the Museo de Antioquia, the Centro de Desarrollo Cultural Moravia, the Jardín Botánico, the Universidad de Antioquia, Plataforma Bogotá and Pro Helvetia. By its later editions, Multitud in 2021 and Intersecciones in 2022, around a hundred artists, musicians and researchers had taken part. The festival's own statement put listening forward as a way toward awareness, memory and reconciliation in a country living through a post-conflict period. Image: A darkened audience under a deep blue projection dome, with the Auditum Semana de la Escucha 2018 logo in white. Caption: Auditum 2018, Semana de la Escucha. #### Exhibitions Curation reached into museums and universities. Escuchas, at LAB3 in the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín in 2015, gathered eleven works by international sound artists, among them France Jobin, Yann Novak and David Vélez, in the museum's listening room, and the ECOS cycle, run between LAB3 and Éter, became a study group on sound art practice. In 2018 eme named, conceived and curated Hipnagogia, an exhibition of sonic arts about the state between sleep and waking. It brought together ten works by Colombian artists for two weeks at the CreaLab of the Facultad de Artes of the Universidad de Antioquia, with spatial design by Pedro Arbeláez, so that the pieces sounded as a single spatial composition. Image: Cover of the Escuchas catalogue: a grainy grey photograph with the title in yellow and white, the LAB3 label and the MAMM logo. Caption: Catalogue cover for Escuchas: una selección de arte sonoro actual, LAB3 at MAMM, 2015. #### Installations and audiovisual work The lab also made its own pieces. Darién, at LAB3 in 2017, invited visitors to lie inside the rhythms of the jungle, and a later version for six channels and three screens set the insect against the scale of the territory. ALEPH ℵ0, with Camilo Tamayo and Rossana Uribe, explored matter and perception through audiovisual distortion. arché, an audio-reactive light installation conceived by eme and made with the duo DesFase for the Fotosíntesis festival at Exploratorio, built a small architecture of vibration from light and sound. Other works went outdoors: Valle Etéreo hid speakers in the Jardín Botánico so visitors could search for invisible acoustic creatures, and Valle Silente moved into public space. Image: An immersive installation: a person reclines beneath a translucent canopy lit with green projected textures, under the title Darién. Caption: Darién at LAB3, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, 2017. Image: Two visitors seen from behind, facing a frame of red light tubes in a smoke-filled dark room. Caption: arché, audio-reactive light installation with DesFase, Fotosíntesis festival, 2018. Image: A still from ALEPH ℵ0: luminous green and amber forms suspended in dark blue liquid. Caption: Still from ALEPH ℵ0, with Camilo Tamayo and Rossana Uribe, 2017. ## Selected work - [Sonic Field](https://www.emeisaza.com/work/sonic-field.md) - [aleph::ch'ixi](https://www.emeisaza.com/work/aleph-chixi.md) - [Éter Lab and Auditum Fest](https://www.emeisaza.com/work/eter-lab.md) - [Momoto Studio](https://www.emeisaza.com/work/momoto-studio.md) - [Writing and editorial](https://www.emeisaza.com/work/writing-editorial.md) - [Compositions and releases](https://www.emeisaza.com/work/releases.md) - [Portfolio](https://www.emeisaza.com/index.md) - [Agent instructions](https://www.emeisaza.com/llms.txt)