This Research Cluster brings together a sensorial account of the stories of violence latent in Regina de Miguel’s experimental sound piece for st_age. These stories carry the smell of the whale carcasses scattered around Deception Island, they are felt in the burning red waters of the Rio Tinto, which is an improbable host of extremophile organisms, they are heard in the cathartic mineras, the local mining songs that leave an iron taste in the mouth, and they are seen from the infinite blackness of the pit.

The cluster includes scientific and socio-historical studies of the Rio Tinto, theoretical publications that have accompanied the artist along her research process, as well as references to the collaborators who have participated in this episode, and accounts of the ongoing exploitation executed by the Rio Tinto Company, which has expanded its colonial extractivism throughout the globe. It also comprehends connections to local folklore, with the voice of anarchist shepherd and cantaor, El Cabrero, and documentation about the cult to the Virgin of Rocío.