A motorcycle, a body, and desire pushed to its limits. Desire Dissection is a live sound performance in which Leo Pum explores the paradox of possession: dismantling what we desire until it disappears, transforming its destruction into sound.
The project emerged from research developed during the artist’s month-long residency at SOLO Castanedo (Cantabria), for which he was selected through the SOLO Castanedo Artistic Residency 2026 international open call.
Speed, power, status or identity: a motorcycle can embody desires that go far beyond its function as a vehicle.
In Desire Dissection, Leo Pum takes the motorcycle as a symbol of aspiration and an extension of the body, pushing the relationship between desire and possession to its limits. Throughout the performance, the artist dismantles a motorcycle while the sounds of tools, impacts and metal being cut are captured, amplified and distorted in real time. What begins as an almost intimate encounter between body and machine gradually transforms into a physical, noisy and irreversible act. As the motorcycle loses its original form, its dismantling creates the soundtrack to its own disappearance.
The soundscape generated by the performance is accompanied by a live DJ set from artist Nina Emocional.
From Castanedo to Madrid
The project originated at our artist residency, SOLO Castanedo, where Leo Pum, selected through an international open call, collected discarded vehicle components and car audio equipment to build a sound system inspired by the improvised setups of free party and rave culture. This reference connects his research to an experience of desire shaped by repetition, physical intensity and exhaustion. In rave culture, sound moves through the body until the boundaries between the two begin to dissolve.
Leo Pum applies this same logic to the motorcycle, transforming it from an object observed at a distance into the material of a direct physical intervention.
The sound system developed during the residency takes on a new function: recording and transforming the sounds produced throughout the dismantling process, from the first screws being removed to the final cuts through metal. The initial attraction to the object gives way to physical contact, tension and, ultimately, the disappearance of its original form. Desire is no longer projected onto the motorcycle but physically enacted upon it. In an attempt to possess it completely, the artist continues dismantling it until there is nothing left to possess.
The performance gives way to an installation, open to the public with free admission until October 31, 2026.