Lirio Salvador
The Alchemist of Rust and the Shaman of Sound
// THE SANDATA
Sandata (weapon) are Lirio Salvador’s sonic sculptures—hybrid instruments assembled from scrap metal, industrial debris, and domestic remnants.
They are not passive instruments. Each Sandata requires a human body to complete its circuit, transforming the performer into conductor, resistor, and collaborator.
// ANG ELEMENTO NI LIRIO
Founded in 1996, was the activation ritual for the Sandata. Without players, they were silent bodies. With Elemento, they breathed.
ELEMENTO was not a band in the conventional sense. It was the activation ritual for Lirio Salvador’s Sandata. Without players, the Sandata were silent bodies. With Elemento, they breathed.
Founded by Lirio in 1996, Elemento functioned as a living laboratory for Ethno-Industrial Sound — a collective where sound, sculpture, movement, and improvisation merged. Performances were not rehearsed compositions but negotiations with noise, feedback, metal, skin, and space.
In Elemento, musicians did not “play” instruments. They completed the circuit. Bodies became conductors. Sweat altered resistance. Each performance was unrepeatable — shaped by who was present, which Sandata were activated, and the energy of the room.
Through Elemento, Lirio ensured that his Sandata were never static artifacts. They remained alive — mutable, communal, and dangerous in the best way: weapons against silence, conformity, and forgetting.
Performances were negotiations with noise, metal, sweat, and space—unrepeatable, communal, and alive.
// ESPASYO SININGDIKATO
This was the headquarters. Not a white-cube gallery, but a Kitchen, Workbench, Exhibition / Performance Space, Spaceship for Experiments. It was here that Lirio nurtured the Alagad ng Sining (Servants of Art) with actual food he would cook himself and creative fire.
It stands as the headquarters of local Ethno-Industrial Sound Sculpture and Sonic Assemblage. It was a laboratory where junk was transmuted into the "Sandata" (Weapon) and the HQ for his band ELEMENTO.
Tad Ermitano is a Filipino writer and cultural critic whose essays documented early experimental sound practices in Manila.
“Lirio’s work enacts a unification of man and machine… The shaman negotiates. The forces are his peers.”
"Lirio’s sculptures and cybernetic performances enact a unification of man and machine, a healing of the rift between the two. We are the apes, he seems to say, that live in the machine forest.
I feel that Lirio’s viewpoint is an animist one at heart. Better yet, that it is a SHAMANISTIC viewpoint, as opposed to an engineering viewpoint. While the shaman and the engineer both traffic with the forces of nature, the shaman, unlike the engineer, does not see himself as the master of those forces. The forces are the shaman’s peers. The shaman negotiates."
ON THE SANDATA: "When the player does this, the player’s body literally becomes part of the circuit. His body’s electrical properties—its resistance, its capacitance, its conductivity—shapes the pitch and timbre of the sound produced by the instrument. In this light, the synthesizer sandata are more like cybernetic prostheses than instruments."
— Tad Ermitano
// FILE: ARTIST PROFILE SUMMARY
Lirio Salvador (1968–2026) was the pioneer of Ethno-Industrial Sound in the Philippines. He founded the seminal sound-art collective ELEMENTO and created the "Sandata"—intricate sound sculptures crafted from the debris of modern life, such as bicycle gears, mixing bowls, stainless steel utensils, and scrap metal.
He treated the "remains" of consumerism (junk) as sacred materials, reassembling them into machines that could speak. His work was a form of "Sonic Assemblage"—a merging of the raw, chaotic energy of industrial noise with the organic, communal spirit of indigenous Filipino culture. Lirio graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the Technological University of the Philippines. His works have been exhibited internationally, including in New York, and Elemento continues to perform experimental sound compositions using his unique instruments.
// LEGACY: GREEN BONES AFTER CREMATION
Lirio Salvador leaves behind a legacy of absolute defiance and resilience—having survived a debilitating hit-and-run accident on December 30, 2011, which left him in a coma and with lasting impairments, while physically bound, he remained the spiritual anchor of the community, inspiring a new generation of artists to build their own Sandatas it was a movement for the next 15 years Elemento ni Lirio.
His final transmission was one of transcendence; a true "Alchemist of Rust" who, in the end, turned the heavy metal of life into something rare and precious. His cremation revealed “green bones” — a final testament to a pure spirit. Now free, in my book, his spirit entered ascended "Demigod Mode", a warrior and servant of art itself. He proved that a true Servant and Warrior of Art serves until the very end.
“Lirio Salvador transformed junk into sacred machinery and noise into communion. His Sandata remain weapons against silence, conformity, and forgetting. I still have one of his sculpted guitars. When i was a child he would come to our house for sandata transpo support to crash embassy events and busk. He built this legacy from zero.
For me he was my godfather watched him work and perform when i was a child my father would take me and my brothers to watch him or he would be at the house working on something so naturally I was captivated and amazed, in my eyes, circuit bending, junk art with scrap metal magic sparked so much enchantment in my heart as a child. Felt like he was a wizard scientist alchemist of rust, metal and electricity maestro and I proudly always say he was my artistic influence, inspiration and idol LEGIT. 🫡”
Rest in peace Lirio ❤️
// MEDIA_ARCHIVE: SONIC_TRANSMISSIONS
Experience the ethno-industrial sounds of Elemento and Lirio's performances. All media embedded from original sources with attribution.
