In Memoriam 
Audio
28'56"
2011-2012
In October 2011 I visited -Jardines del Humaya-, extravagant cemetery located in Culiacan, Sinaloa, in which usually the dead are buried in small ostentatious buildings. Beyond the fascinating architecture and the perceived silence, sometimes interrupted by the workers hammerings that dig or build new graves, I concentrated in the elegies, epitaphs and other messages that conform an intercommunication from the living to the dead, or viceversa, because some phrases have been drafted as if the dead were speaking.


Pandilleros (Gang) 
Video and audio
05'59"
2011
"Pandilleros" is an improvisatory exersice carried out with the collaboration of the students at Israel Martínez's Taller de Experimentación Sonora (Sound Experimentation Workshop). On their way through University City, they use Helen Escobedo's sculpture "Coatl" to complete the intervention. In contrast to the passive attitude expected of those who observe monuments, this action results in a concert of stones, bottles, and the boidies of the musicians, who use "Cóatl" as a huge instrument


Llorona 
Sign on the wall and audio on megaphone
Audio loop
2014
Megaphone is a popular tool for the transmission of messages in Mexico. The reproduction of a sign from a concert of the band Llorona (Crybaby), from Oaxaca, frames the screaming paperboys selling tabloids, which offer reports of stolen and killed neighbors in a suburb in Guadalajara. The quality of the recordings as well as the spaceʼ s acoustics modify the aural properties of the messages, which resemble a lamentation, alluding to the Mexican myth of La Llorona, a figure resembling Medea who murdered her own children and is permanent mourning.


Ruido 
Digital print and light box
45 x 35 cm (17.72 x 13.78 in)
2013
Enigmatic building that transmits the sensuality of sound to us via its luminous sign.


Partitura (Score) 
Video and audio
04'12"
2009
Action in which the arm is tattooed with a phrase that repeats itself: silence is noise silence is noise silence is noise silence is noise ... The audio is altered slightly, almost imperceptibly.


Ningún espejismo... 
Video and sound
03'06"
2014
Through a series of audiovisual installations “People behaving like true animals”, Israel Martínez has explored alternatives to articulated language as possible ways of communication: aural memory, gesticulated mimesis and the deprivation of liberty in diverse manners.
For this third work "No illusion”, Gerardo Montes de Oca, mexican student and activist currently residing in Austria, was invited by Martínez to perform an improvisation in which, through sound, he would express his emotions for his country. The action took place in Mexikoplatz, Vienna where a monument stands acknowledging the mexican government for its official pronouncement against the Nazi invasion of this city. With this work Martinez forces us to ask ourselves: when will these policies against the violation of human rights be excercised in our own country?


Gente comportándose como verdaderos animales (People behaving as real animals) 
Video and audio
10'09"
2011
Amateur collaborators were invited to improvise alongside the artist, the idea was to produce an audiovisual installation imitating or creating a hypothetic soundscape. This was a potentially alternative version of the orthodox conception of soundscape, in which humans are mostly passive, only registering what happens around them. Here, they participate actively by transforming it. The collaborators were given the following instructions before acting: 1 Place your hands behind you, your freedom has been limited. 2 Free your hands and body by using an energetic gesture. 3 For as long as you like, improvise, explore the silence, imitate nature, create potential soundscapes. 4 End in silence with your hands behind you, your temporary freedom has ended. The work offers a playful approach to music and chance, as well as the possibility of studying communication beyond spoken language. Their eyes are covered, first of all, to allow them to concentrate on the sounds emitted by others; secondly, because the work’s aesthetic and its secondary purpose allude to the history of loss of liberty in Mexican society due to socio-political events. Kidnapping, when it is not corporeal, can be psychological, and only acting as “animals” are we noticed by the structures of power and by our own community.


Mi vida 
Audio
07'06"
2006
Work composed with sounds of cars that narrate in a non-linear way a trip, which ends in an accident. Aural reflection about the dependence on cars in countries like Mexico.
Award of distinction, Prix Ars Electronica 2007, Digital Music category.


Fusilado (Shot) 
Four channel audio and digital print
04'30"
2013
A torrent of impacts on a wall produced by balls, leaving a somber pattern. In some racket sports, it is usual, during adolescence, that after having lost a game, the first loser will be shot, using his racket as unique protection. A ritual that reflects violence at early ages.


Spend time, waste time 
Video and audio
04'59"
2012
A large number of people are recorded in Berlin while they wait, and the camera’s presence provokes varied reactions. The audio is made up of an enveloping sonic mass that unites their voices and the soundscape.