Back on 30 October at 17 at the Auditorium Parco della Musica “Ennio Morricone” for the Romaeuropa Festival and thanks to the co-production with Musica per Roma, Ryoji Ikeda, one of the most important pioneers of computer music and abstract music.
Among the artists who have gone through the history of Romaeuropa (unforgettable his participation in the Festival since 2003 and the live performances of some of his most important successes such as Test Pattern – presented in collaboration with Dissonanze Lab in 2011), the Japanese composer has developed his artistic career between musical performances and installations capable of combining video and electronic sound. Since 2016 his research has expanded to the study of acoustic music starting from compositions designed for stringed instruments and percussion. In collaboration with the Swiss collective Eklekto, the music for percussion 1 project was born (presented for the Grand Finale of the Romaeuropa Festival 2018): 4 pieces performed one after the other performed through body percussion, triangles, sets of crotales and suspended cymbals . Music for percussion 2 draws from this path. With his ensemble Ikeda focuses this time on non-musical objects such as morse code handlers, metronomes, books, tables, pieces of paper, pencils, rulers and basketballs. The composer’s iconic aesthetic – now internationally recognized as part of the musical tradition – is transferred into acoustic instruments or objects creating minimalist compositions that build continuity with his digital work and the textures of his electronic compositions.
Between real and virtualconcrete and digital objects, he continues from 1 to 13 November at Mattatoio, Digitalive, there REF section edited by Federica Patti dedicated to the exploration of digital cultures and new virtual stages dedicated to performance. Performative formats that are redefining the very concept of live music by redrawing not only the boundaries between disciplines but also the very presentation of artistic projects, the role of artists and artists, the relationship with the public. The first example is Spleen Machine by Alex Braga, an audiovisual show entirely based on an A-MINT artificial intelligence system, created by the artist together with professors Riganti and Laudani of the ROMATRE University and aimed at creating together with the artist a series of abstract and futuristic landscapes sculpted by notes and sounds. But far from concluding with the end of the concert, the live performance transforms in real time into a digital work of art certified in NFT and sold through the Smart Ticket. By purchasing the ticket for the concert on November 1st at 21, the spectators will come into possession of a Non-Fungible Token authenticated on the EOS blockchain: a digital artwork, a 3D video, created by the artist during the show and transformed in NFT in real time from the A-LIVE platform. A new perspective of enhancing the works of female artists through the use of those technologies created to guarantee the ownership and authenticity of digital assets.
Artificial intelligence is once again at the center of the investigation by the artist Sofia Crespo who on November 4th at 9 pm with AquA(l)formings – Interweaving the Subaqueous explores the large-scale changes in the marine environment caused by human presence by seeking to imagine how the new conditions (rising of sea level and water temperature, its new chemical composition) can be reflected in its inhabitants. On November 5 Franz Rosati returns to the Festival with Distantia (at 9 pm), the audiovisual multimedia project crossed by experimental and electronic sounds (the sound is generated by machine learning algorithms) and built from the assembly of satellite images to attempt an allegorical representation of the observation mediated by distance, while on 6 November visual artist and quantum physicist Libby Heaney presents the audiovisual performance slimeQore (8pm), an immersive video montage and spoken narrative that uses slime as a metaphor for the quantum world. The artist will use data from IBM’s five-qubit quantum computing systems to (re)compose the video montage through images, revealing the layered reality inside computers and highlighting the vast multidimensionality in quantum computing.
Digitalive also hosts debate and discussion activities with the public: it starts on 4 November at 18.30 with XDXD Supernova: electronic generation, a tribute to the visionary artist Salvatore Iaconesi who recently passed away. Founder of Art is Open Source, composer between the late 1990s and early 2000s of an electronic music that bears witness to the passage of an era and the emergence of an artistic and cultural scene in which the rhythm of the bits, the queer and the rave met creating new imaginaries, Iaconesi will be honored in a first-person account of the custodians of this music: a conversation between his partner Oriana Persico and Mariano Virdio, Maura Favero (art historian and professor of archiving and conservation methodologies of digital art at the Brera Academy) and Arianna Forte (curator and co-founder of the Erinni).
We continue with ADV Gathering – live digital arts, the first national meeting of the network of university and academic researchers in the Live Digital Arts sector. A first round table, coordinated by Antonio Pizzo, on Saturday 5 November at 3 pm, focuses on the theme of the use of artificial intelligence in the theater and performance environment with Alessandro Anglani, Luca Befera, Simone Arcagni, Antonio Lieto, Massimo Magrini and Vanessa Vozzo. At 18.30 Caterina Tomeo presents her book Electronics is a WOMAN, transfeminist and queer with Elena Giulia Rossi and Chiara Passa. Sunday 6 November at 10 Anna Maria Monteverdi will coordinate the round table on robots and artificial and synthetic realities used in the creation of the arts and in performance with Alessio Arena, Vincenzo Del Gaudio, Antonio Pizzo, Cinzia Toscano Massimo Bergamasco and Erica Magris.
The cycle of talks will close at 6.30 pm with the multimedia artist Kamilia Kard, among the artists selected by Digital Residences, the network created and promoted by the Tuscan Residence Center (Armunia – CapoTrave / Kilowatt) and of which the Marche Association for Theater Activities AMAT are part , Residence Center of Emilia-Romagna (L’Arboreto – Teatro Dimora di Mondaino, La Corte Ospitale di Rubiera), Fondazione Luzzati Teatro della Tosse of Genoa, ZONA K Association of Milan, Piemonte Dal Vivo – Steam Laundry of Piedmont and Romaeuropa Foundation.
The talk anticipates the week of returns of the performances selected by the network which will take place online from 7 to 13 November and which includes Toxic Garden – Dance Dance Dance by Kard herself: a series of online participatory performances set in a metaverse created ad hoc by artist on Roblox, a popular MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game). The participants, through their avatars, are involved in synchronized group dances, on choreographies that combine dance steps recorded in Motion Capture in collaboration with performers or taken from famous video games.
The entire DIGITALIVE program here:
The whole DIGITAL RESIDENCE program here: https://www.residenzedigitali.it/calendario-restituzioni-2022/
Romaeuropa Festival 2022, from Ryoji Ikeda to the metaverse for the Digital Live section