Eugenio Amézquita Velasco
Translation: Metro News Mx
-Mariana Ledezma revolutionizes sound art with the "Caja Sonora" (Sound Box) workshop, exploring noise and post-industrial experimentation.
-From Salamanca to the world, visual artist Ledezma challenges musical norms through improvisation and saturation.
-The 2025 Celaya Experimental Film Fest projects Guanajuato’s talent to seventeen countries through electronic media.
Mariana Ledezma: Noise as Artistic Territory
The 5th edition of the Celaya Experimental Film Fest 2025 features the prominent participation of Mariana Ledezma as a workshop leader, conducting the session titled "Caja Sonora." Born in Salamanca, Guanajuato, in 1996, Ledezma is a visual artist graduated from the University of Guanajuato whose practice wanders between post-industrial phenomena, soundscapes, and the expressive possibilities of electronics and sound. Her work reflects deeply on territory, technical memory, and the symbolic weight of industrial environments—a vision influenced by her family history linked to the oil industry, an experience that permeates her perspective on energy, labor, and the transformation of matter.
In an interview for Guanajuato Desconocido and Metro News, the artist explained that the "Caja Sonora" is a hand-manufactured artifact used in genres such as ambient, noise, and drone. This device creates sound effects that allow various artists to diversify their sets, with precedents in groups like Sonic Youth, who intervened in their guitars in a similar fashion. The primary goal of the workshop is to generate noise—sound or din—for the creation of experimental music, breaking the norm by using instruments in unconventional ways or manufacturing their own.
Despite the classical definition of music as a set of harmoniously ordered sounds and silences, Ledezma defends her work as a musical exploration that utilizes both silence and saturation. While it is possible to generate scores, the artist emphasizes that her process is based on constant improvisation, ensuring that she never performs the same set twice due to the complexity of remembering every adjustment on pedals and knobs. Inspired by figures like John Cage, Ledezma seeks to help young people overcome their fear of electronics and understand that sound is not as complicated as it seems.
With a career that includes three solo exhibitions and group shows in venues such as the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Casa del Lago, Centro Cultural de España en México, and Espacio Calosa, Ledezma’s work has reached Colombia, the United States, and Spain. This project is promoted by the Secretary of Culture of the State of Guanajuato through the 2025 State Fund for Culture and the Arts Call (FONCA), taking place from December 18 to 20, 2025. Ledezma’s work joins a growing community of noise producers, such as Bolo in Guadalajara or Adrián in León, consolidating this new space in the contemporary art scene.
The Interview with Mariana Ledezma, Visual Artist
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Well, I have the pleasure of greeting none other than one of the workshop leaders of the 5th Edition of the Celaya Experimental Film Fest, Mariana Ledezma, who is teaching a workshop called "Caja Sonora." Mariana, thank you very much. I know you are from Salamanca; we were just finding out about that.
What is this "Caja Sonora"? What does it consist of? What is the theme? What are the objectives? What is perceived through it? Thank you very much, Mariana, for the interview.
Mariana Ledezma:
Well, it is an artifact made by hand and used in several genres, such as ambient, noise, and drone; several artists have started implementing it to make their sets more varied.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Ok, so, it creates sound effects? I want to think that is what we are referring to. Something like that? Yes, yes. Well, have these sound effects already been manifested in any musical performance or on an album, this "Caja Sonora" thing?
Mariana Ledezma:
Yes, of course, I mean, there are even approaches like Sonic Youth, who intervened in their guitars, and it was something similar; it was already headed that way.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Ok, I don’t know, what kind of sounds are they or what kind of effects are achieved, and what would be the ultimate goal of this "Caja Sonora," besides what you have told me? Thank you, thank you.
Mariana Ledezma:
Well, to make something called noise, which is basically sound, noise, like experimenting; it is mostly for making experimental music.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
There are many of us who do not understand experimental music. Last year at the Festival, there was a sort of work—it wasn't a concert, it was part of a concert—where a piece of experimental music was performed. Sometimes those of us who are used to traditional music don't understand this type of experimental music. I don’t know what you could tell me about that as well.
Mariana Ledezma:
It can go a bit outside the norm; that is, not using instruments directly, but making them, or making an instrument have a different function than what it normally has. It’s always like, I don’t know, stepping away from the instruments we already know and giving them a twist.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Those of us who have studied a little bit of music in middle school remember the definition of music, right? It is the set of silences and sounds ordered harmoniously, or something like that is the definition. Here, how could this series of sounds generated experimentally fall into the definition of music? Could it be called music?
Mariana Ledezma:
Well, yes, it could be a musical exploration. Maybe not music as it is technically or more conceptually kept in mind, but it is an approach. And here, for example, silences are also used a lot, but saturation is also used a lot.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
I see. Now, accustomed to what is "read music," as musicians say, can scores be generated for this type of music? I don't know. Is it possible?
Mariana Ledezma:
Yes, it is possible. Although later, because... well, for example, I never have the same set; I don't rehearse it. It is always something different because it is difficult to remember what you did, what change you made, what pedal you were using, in what way. So, instead of having thousands of knobs to know what you did, you simply improvise all the time.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Well, and speaking of Mariana Ledezma. Mariana Ledezma, I want to think you are a musician. You are a musical artist, I assume. Do you have an academic profile?
Mariana Ledezma:
Well, no. I'm not so much into music. I studied Visual Arts.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
I see.
Mariana Ledezma:
And that is where I encountered certain approaches—John Cage, for example—and then I felt encouraged to do more experimentation with sound.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Fine. Visual Arts at the University of Guanajuato, or at which institution?
Mariana Ledezma:
Yes, in Guanajuato.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Ah, perfect. It’s a very broad field there at the University of Guanajuato. Well, regarding the theme of your workshop, I don’t know what aspects you have covered, or are covering, because the workshop hasn't finished yet—it continues today, from what I see. What topics, what areas are you looking at? Is it practice, or just experiments? Yes, well, yes.
Mariana Ledezma:
Mainly experiments, also so that people lose this fear that electronics are complicated, or that sound is complicated, or that pedals are complicated, and so they feel encouraged—to see that it isn't as complicated as it sometimes seems.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Well, in this field—this might be my last question unless you have something else to tell me—but in this field of experimental music, are there more young people, more producers, more people getting into this new space of music? Are there more participants?
Mariana Ledezma:
Yes, there are many people, especially very young generations have started; there are many projects.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Good.
Mariana Ledezma:
For example, there is a musician named Bolo, who is from Guadalajara, who is among the first ones who started dealing with noise, and he also gives workshops. I have a friend named Adrián, who is in León, who does too. Yes, there is quite a lot of people doing it.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
I didn't quite catch the term. Noise? Ruido?
Mariana Ledezma:
Noise, uh-huh.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
Perfect, but in English. Well, Mariana, congratulations, and thank you too, because we are providing media coverage for the Celaya Experimental Fest, and we are translating some articles into English precisely so that the 17 participating countries—I don't know if you knew, there are 17 participating countries in this festival—also have access to the information and know what has been happening here. I thank you, thank you very much for your time; I know you are continuing with the workshop, and we will stay in touch. Thank you very much, Mariana.
Mariana Ledezma:
Ok, thank you very much, great.
Eugenio Amézquita Velasco:
I am Eugenio Amézquita and this is Guanajuato Desconocido and Metro News.
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