From Oct. 11 to 13, Digitalive, the Romaeuropa festival event curated by Federica Patti dedicated to algorithmic performaning arts, this year with virtual reality shows, musical works created with artificial intelligence, rewrites of the classics on Telegram, soundscapes and immersive performances, will be running at the Mattatoio in Rome.
The first appointment on Oct. 11 at Mattatoio is with Paul Boereboom and Leon Rogissart and their virtual reality performance Ascension VR (Oct. 11-12-13), which, modeled after the 1950s flotation tank, invites the viewer to immerse himself in a space dedicated to reflection and characterized by a delicate combination of images and the live operatic music of soprano Marie van Luijk and countertenor Arturo den Hartog. And with Tempo Reale, a point of reference for research in the field of sound and new musical technologies, offering Foosball participatory sound action for a plurality of table-football players and live electronics (Oct. 11-12-13); a continuous performance, from 4 to 7 p.m., that recreates the typical atmosphere of a table-football tournament, inviting the listener into a soundscape in which the audience and competitive players can take turns and participate in real matches of this nearly century-old game.
A few steps away from Pelanda, in the Campo Boario venue of the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome, on Oct. 11 and 12 (2 p.m. – 8 p.m. 00) it will be possible to visit Collisioni, a sensitive environment of light and sound, an encounter between experimental physicist Biagio di Micco, media artist Cristian Rizzuti with young scholars Giulia Ciappi, Walter Maiorino, Andreaelisa Sausa, and Eleonora Scarponi, to experiment with the subatomic physics of the Higgs boson, a project born and grown out of a partnership between the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome and INFN-National Institute of Nuclear Physics at the University of Roma Tre.
On the evening of the 11th, at 7 p.m. Caterina Tomeo will talk about sound experimentation in the artistic field, with a focus on the voice, a preview of her new book, VOICE The Phenomenon of Voice Between the Immaterial and the Carnal, due out in November 2024, discussing it with authors Agnese Banti, Gaia Ginevra Giorgi, Muta Imago, and Barbara de Dominicis.
Musical research is one of the main threads of Digitalive, presenting some of the most innovative artists on the national and international scene. Expected at the Mattatoio in collaboration with Robot Festival is Nicola Ratti (Oct. 11, 9 p.m.), a composer and sound-designer whose works traverse diverse fields from theater to cinema via performing arts, radio works and sound-art in international contexts such as theater festivals, biennials and museums.
Next up is the duo formed by Yilia, a star of the breakbeat scene in southern Spain, and Eva Geist, an Italian classically trained in piano and singing, at the festival to present Umm, (Oct. 11, 10 p.m.), a project born out of an artistic residency at the Cervantes Institute in Rome. And again 33EMYBW (Sansan Wu Shanmin), a Shanghai-born musician and visual artist, among today’s most radical, acclaimed by Aphex Twin for her astonishing sound experiments combining avant-pop and radical research, at Digitalive with her fourth album Holes of Sinian (Oct. 12, 9 p.m. 00): a work of abstract dance music, characterized by lashing synthesizers, drones and belligerent drums, inspired by the Ediacarno geological period.
And Luwei, (Oct. 12, 11 p.m.), a Chinese-born DJ based in Milan, with one of his live shows with a broad spectrum of international sounds that seamlessly weave together elements of breakbeat, bass, hypnotic techno, deconstructed clubbing and more.
Exploring the digital bleakness in the age of social networks, Giacomo Lilliù’s The Million Dollar Theatropostage (Oct. 12, 10 p.m.), which, with dramaturgical curatorship by Pier Lorenzo Pisano and a research group that aggregates artists and digital content creators, stages a digital rewrite of Goldoni, created by the company to the tune of selfies, gifs and emoji. Disturbed by a shitposting on Telegram, which bombards the group with memes created precisely from the images shared by the actors, a grueling degeneration kicks off, making for a hilarious performance where it is mandatory to keep the volume of notifications on.
While curated by RE:HUMANISM, the artist duo dmstfctn seeks new inter-nationships with the audience through a new interactive audiovisual experience with an extraordinary original soundtrack performed live by Evita Manji. Waluigi’s Purgatory (Oct. 12, 7 p.m.), set in a 3D theater simulated in real time, tells the story of an artificial intelligence trapped in a purgatory reserved for AIs who ask for the audience’s assistance, thus discovering the disturbing stories of other characters: a journey through the contradictions of an AI able to perceive and accept the divergence between its own desires and those of its human creators.
Digitalive closes with a concert curated by Klan of Berlin-based singer-songwriter Petra Hermanova, who came to prominence on the international scene with In Death’s Eyes, her debut solo album released on Unguarded in 2023 and with which she earned a Czech Grammy nomination. After several sold-out performances at international festivals and a performance with the iconic Schnitger pipe organ at the Akerk in Groningen, Hermanova presents her hit album at Romaeuropa festival in a new intimate atmosphere, accompanied only by the autoharp, a central element of her art, and her voice, creating musical atmospheres that oscillate between delicate melodies and powerful distorted sounds.
Completing the program of Digitalive is the 3rd National Gathering of ADV Digital Live Arts, a cross-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary group born from the proposal of Anna Monteverdi and Antonio Pizzo (Oct. 12-13), which reaches its third edition continuing to gather scholars and academics, as well as curators and artists, who address the historical and theoretical issues that have emerged from the mediatization of live events, in performance and theater.
This group aims to serve as a critical observatory of Italian and international techno-performative practices, to gather ideas, promote and disseminate projects, and make widely known a field of research, training and production that is often uniquely affiliated with digital arts and audiovisuals. The group intends to consolidate a widespread, 30-year experience but also hopes to open a cultural space for new research. The working method of the group, currently united in a mailing list coordinated by the State University of Milan, is transversal and trans-disciplinary and involves studies ranging from digital scenography to interaction design for theater dance and music, includes research on cognitive science, interactive storytelling, sociology of media, keeping performance and theater at the center of its interest without categorically excluding other fronts. ADV gathers about thirty of the most qualified personalities in Italy and is present with its own unitary panels, in the most important world conferences of theatrical disciplines: from the European network of theaters Eastap (Milan, May 23-27, 2022), to the International Federation of Theatre Research (Reykiavik June 20-25, 2022).
Digitalive. Romaeuropa Festival, Rome, 11-13.10.2024
images: (cover 1) FOOSBALL © Fabio Fiandrini per per Aspera (2) Muziektheater Transparant, Leon Rogissart, Paul Boereboom, Arturo Den Hartog, Marie van Luijk, Ascension VR (3) Collisioni – Cristian Rizzuti – Biagio Di Micco. ph Monkeys Video Lab (3) Eva Geist (4) 33EMYBW e Luwei (5) Waluigi’s Purgatory di dmstfctn
