Friday 6 and Saturday 7 September 2024 sees the return of the eighth edition of the Blooming Festival, two days dedicated to the promotion of artistic expressions of research in the field of digital culture, music and electronic arts that will cover the most attractive locations in the historic centre of Pergola.
Sacred spaces, hidden spaces, underground spaces: churches, gardens, cellars will come alive with projections, images, sounds that will propose a different, imaginative reading of the places, stimulating the wonder and curiosity of visitors, contributing to enhance the historical and architectural heritage of the city.
Some of the most important and recognised international artists in the field will be present, some for the first time in Italy; there will be ample space for interactivity and immersiveness, with spectacular videos, installations, and projections, and there will also be engaging live performances.
The Canadian Martin Messier will propose his most recent project 1 drop 1000 years, a live performance that, seeking to highlight the subtlety of our homeostatic system and the fragility of its balance, proposes an artistic interpretation of these intimate and global currents that are essential for the survival of our species and its environment. The performance will take place at the Angel dal Foco Theatre, which for the first time is one of the festival locations.
Guillaume Marmin, after his first presentation in Italy in 2019, returns to Blooming with the installation Oh Lord, an immersive projection based on images of the solar surface, in the church of Sant’Orsola.
Encor studio, with the support of ProHelvetia – Swiss foundation for culture, will present a site-specific version of the installation Alcove: suspended luminescent panels conceal and reveal visions of the outside world in a new festival location, an old abandoned furniture factory.
Aka Chang, a leading exponent of the Taiwanese art scene, will present the installation Ring, a laser projection designed especially for Blooming, in the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Corso Matteotti.
Ultravioletto will present a site-specific version of the large light and interactive installation Urban Oracle, in which an artificial intelligence, instructed by the artists, draws on a database of words to dialogue with the outside world.
This edition of Blooming is also part of the widespread project of Pesaro 2024 – Italian Capital of Culture ‘Blue: the colour of cuccagna’ implemented by Casa Sponge within the section ‘The industrious nature of culture’. For the occasion, Nessie Studios presents the interactive installation Nativ0e, specially adapted on the theme of blue.
The Angel dal Foco Theatre will also host Ginevra Nervi, soundtrack composer and electronic music producer, with her new show ‘The Disorder of Appearances A/V’, a tribute to the pioneers of electronic music. A dialogue between ambient, electronic and avant-garde music in which Voice, Sound and Noise represent the three main nuclei.
The performance is part of the Blooming 2024 live programme, organised in collaboration with Rebel House, which also includes live sets by And the Bear (IT) on the evening of Friday 6 and Thek (IT) on Saturday 7 September, in Piazza Ginevri.
During the festival, the winning project of the international call #bloomingyou, selected from over 50 applications received from all over the world, will be presented. The call jury, composed of curators Federica Patti and Filippo Lorenzin with the artistic direction of the festival, chose Sara Pezzolesi’s project Algorithmic state of mind, a multimedia and multisensory installation that will be presented in the Church of the Three Kings.
Special projects include a new immersive virtual reality installation by Bad Clipping Studio.
As every year, a workshop for children will be offered, which is also open to adults. This year, the concept of Blooming will be addressed by unusually ‘analogue’ means, through a special watercolour painting course with illustrator Karla Dueñas.
(from the press release)
Blooming Festival, Pergola (Italy), September 6-7. 2024
Blooming Festival is a project of Palazzo Bruschi, under the direction of Rita Camilucci. The social promotion association’s main aims are to organise cultural events and foster the exchanges that are more necessary than ever between ideas and works, artists, professionals and the public. The artistic direction of the festival is by Quiet Ensemble, one of Italy’s most important creative multimedia studios.
Artists: Martin Messier (CAN), Guillaume Marmin (FR), Aka Chang (TW), Amelie Duchow (DE), Ultravioletto (IT), Encor Studio (CH), Ginevra Nervi (IT), And the Bear (IT), Thek (IT), Mauro Pace (IT), Nessie Studios (IT), Giulio Pernice e Francesca Gollo (IT), Cora (IT), Jacobi (IT), Bad Clipping Studio (IT).
The festival is held under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, the Università Politecnica delle Marche – UNIVPM, ATIM Marche, and the Marche Chamber of Commerce; with the support and patronage of the Marche Region, the Municipality of Pergola, the support of ProHelvetia – Swiss Foundation for Culture, Confcommercio Marche nord, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro | Sponsors: Bcc Pergola Corinaldo, Santelli casa, Unipol | Partners: Rebel House, Proloco Pergola, Officina Giovani, Umanesimo Artificiale, Eidos Consulting | Technical partners: Oltremondo Birrificio Contadino, Terracruda, Villa Ligi, Visner di Pergola
