[Microsound-announce] [press release]: Eco e Narciso / Five Audio-Landscapes, Torino/Italy

[stephan mathieu]

--

The Eco e Narciso project has been sponsored by the Provincia di Torino since 2003, with the aim to encourage the contribution of artistic sensitivity during the process of analysis, development and transformation of the local area.

Taking the Material Culture Project project a step further ­ a project whose ultimate goal consists in drawing a parallel between the landscape and its indigenous museums and ecomuseums and its artistic interpretation of it ­ Eco e Narciso delves deeper into the various languages employed as a means of investigation: Art in 2003, Photography in 2004, Literature in 2005. Now, in 2006, it¹s the turn of Music and Sound to have their say.

Eco e Narciso. Cultura Materiale/Musica, curated by Daniela Cascella and Rebecca De Marchi, will involve the contribution of eight internationally acclaimed experimental musicians and sound artists, who have been commissioned five site-specific sound installations ­ one for each location selected among the ecomuseum network of the Provincia di Torino. The official opening ceremony of the installations is scheduled for the 15th and the 16th July 2006. It will be preceded by a series of meet & greet / listening sessions hosted by the curators and the musicians themselves at the Caffè Procope ­ Juvarra Theatre in Turin, in Spring 2006.


BRUNO DORELLA, MARCO MILANESIO, FABRIZIO MODONESE PALUMBO (Italy)
> Entrance building to the Cavour Canal in Chivasso

Three of the most important artists in the Italian underground musical scene will be working on an audio  installation which will be positioned inside the entrance building to the Cavour Canal in Chivasso, an architectonic jewel of the end of the XIX century. A tête à tête between architectural geometries and challenging shadow-plays of sounds.


JOHN DUNCAN (U.S.A./Italy) and VALERIO TRICOLI (Italy)
> The IPCA Ecomuseum ­ (the former) Piedmontese Factory of Aniline-based Dyes 
> in Ciriè

One of the masters of experimentation with sound, who¹s been living in Italy for years now, collaborates for the first time with one of the most promising young musicians of the Italian experimental scene. Both artists will face the challenging experience of bringing back to life (through the presence of sound) the vast spaces of the former dye-factory in Ciriè, a place full of history and awaiting a new employment.


JACOB KIRKEGAARD (Denmark)
> Naturalistic itinerary of the Val Servin course of the Antonio Castagneri 
> Alpine Guides Ecomuseum in Balme

The young Danish sound recordist, who released last year Eldfjall, a cd using recordings taken in the proximity of volcanoes in Iceland, will be collecting sounds around the area of Balme, the land of alpine guides. These recordings will be subsequently installed and played across an itinerary that will develop along the mountain huts in the area. 


STEPHAN MATHIEU (Germany)
>MUNLAB Ecomuseum of Clay in Cambiano

One of the most interesting voices in the ³post-digital² approach towards musical research, Stephan Mathieu composed some of the most fascinating albums in the last few years, interweaving lyrical inspiration and long, melodic parts. The musician, who has already worked in the past on sound installations in an industrial environment, will be working on the complex structure of the clay-factory in Cambiano, active to this day.


STEVE RODEN (U.S.A.) 
> Entrance hall to the ³Uffici 1² building ­ MAAM in Ivrea 

Not new to projects related to sound interacting in an active and empathic way both with architecture (the Summer Pavillion by Alvaro Siza at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Schindler House in Los Angeles) and with design, Steve Roden will produce a track for the homeland of Adriano Olivetti, to be installed in the entrance hall to the Uffici 1 building, that dates back to the 60¹s, characterized by an exagonal wooden staircase and glass roof.



Why was sound chosen as the artistic subject which will be featured in the 2006 edition of Eco e Narciso? Without any doubts, sound as a means of strong and independent expression has been gaining the attention of museums and institutions during the end of the last millennium. Experimentation with sound (and its combination with the visual and performance arts) has been around for a long time and therefore has a very long history and heritage: however, only recently has this history started to emerge and sound has gained  the right, along with all the other artistic languages, to conquer a space outside the traditional ³boundaries² where music is performed and listened to. Sound has set off to conquer everyday-life spaces, museums, exhibitions.

The artists taking part in the Eco e Narciso project don¹t use sound as a linear medium (i.e developing along a well-defined time span): they rather employ it to give birth to places and atmospheres, to enhance the charm of a location, to underline its hidden contrasts, as an exquisitely plastic means of creating ³audio-landscapes².
This is the reason why the musicians involved have been asked to use solely sound to create their installations, without resorting to no other artistic languages: the curators¹ aim is to give as much space as possible to a means of expression that, notwithstanding its immateriality and elusiveness, has the ability to capture the attention in a profound and subtle manner. It does so often venturing into new ground as regards common perception, but this is ultimately the hidden challenge in the project: to attain a new kind of participation in the public and, through the employment of sounds throughout the ecomuseums ­ sounds that are strictly connected to the places themselves ­ try to trigger new interest in these locations, showing them under a different light, and uncovering their often-concealed features. The project intends to address the local public as much as the international one, by commissioning a number of challenging new site­specific works from the musicians. 

During the spring of 2004, an online forum on the website of contemporary art magazine Artforum revolved around the reasons of the growing visibility and spreading of the culture of sound in the artistic milieu during the last years. During the aforesaid forum, current issues regarding the intersection of sound, spatial issues and the visual arts were discussed. It was clear that the culture of sound as an expressive medium capable of conveying the complex perceptive experience of space was progressively becoming more important; all this is today partially reflected in the growing awareness of museums and institutions as regards the renewed interest shown towards this language. Among the many exhibitions in this area are Volume. Bed of Sound at the PS1 in New York (2000), Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery in London (2000), Sound Art-Sound As Media at the ICC in Tokyo (2000), Sonic Process (2002) and Sons et Lumières (2005) at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Frequenzen [Hz] at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt (2002), and the vast audio-installation Raw Materials created by Bruce Nauman in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London in 2004/05. 

Along with the enterprises undertaken by the above-mentioned museums, a series of non-institutional ventures in site-specific locations are worthy of equal relevance: though more difficult to communicate and document and often barely recognizable, they provide an equally significant and atmospheric alternative to the institutional spaces. For instance, the sound installations by Max Neuhaus who, since the late 70¹s introduced sounds in various environments, starting from Times Square in New York (the installation is still existing to this day) and moving onto other outdoors locations. The sound experimentation airing on several especially dedicated radio stations (like WPS1 in New York, or ResonanceFM in London) is also worthy of interest ­ as the hundreds of events and site-specific projects impossible to list here comprehensively.
Eco e Narciso / Music is oriented towards this particular area of research, whose boundaries are still little defined and, because of this, full of surprises and unexpected turns; the aim remains the active involvement of the public in the discovery of landscapes and places of sound from a new and stimulating point of view.


The project is divided into three phases:

1. A preliminary study phase, thus organized
- Sojourn on location of the musicians, who will thus enter in contact with the local life during a period of about five days and will be recording sounds in the area of assignment ­ sounds which will be subsequently reworked into the installations
- Meet & greet / presentation in Turin where the landmarks of each musician¹s work will be relived through a series of guided listening sessions and a talk with the curators 


> March Monday 20 th 2006 ­ h 17,30
Bruno Dorella, Marco Milanesio, Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo

> April Thursday 13 th 2006 ­ h 17,30
Stephan Mathieu

> May Wednesday 3 rd 2006 ­ h 17,00
Jacob Kirkegaard - John Duncan/Valerio Tricoli



2. Installation of the musicians¹ work in the ecomuseums and official opening ceremony
- The artists will develop site-specific sound installations that will be placed in the various locations. - 

> The opening ceremony is scheduled for July 15th and 16th 2006 and the
> installations will remain open to the public till September 2006.

3. CD/catalogue that will contain the excerpts from the audio tracks of each installation, with a booklet with texts by the curators of the project.


For further information and updates on the project www.ecoenarciso.it 


ECO E NARCISO IS A PROJECT OF

PROVINCIA DI TORINO
SERVIZIO CULTURA
PROGETTO CULTURA MATERIALE
WWW.CULTURAMATERIALE.IT

IN COLLABORATION WITH 

MUNLAB ECOMUSEO DELL¹ARGILLA CANALE CAVOUR
ECOMUSEO ALL¹IPCA
ECOMUSEO DELLE GUIDE ALPINE
MAAM

INFORMATION

PROGETTO CULTURA MATERIALE VIA BERTOLA 34 ­ TORINO
TEL. 011.8615327

INFO at ECOENARCISO.IT   WWW.ECOENARCISO.IT

--