At Contemporary Cluster, a multidisciplinary space, from November 2019 to May 2020, a series of events will be addressed to analyse ‘rituality and synaesthesia’ (which gives the event its title) through talks, audio-visual performances, vinyl sets and sleep concerts. The project is curated by Caterina Tomeo, who has always been interested in the connections between sound and visual creativity and their mutual contamination, and works on all aspects of the organisation of festivals and educational activities, embracing a vision which encompasses all forms of doing and thinking art, where the mutual relationship of image and sound is concerned.
Contemporary Cluster at Palazzo Cavallerini will also host the exhibition Active Listening (10 January – 10 February) to “reactivate the memory of Palazzo Cavallerini Lazzaroni with the forms of modernity, paying particular attention to sound experiments in the art field”.
The exhibition project includes the participation of artists who have given space to sound in their creative work. These artists intend to re-educate the visitors to listening, which means the activation of the whole range of perceptive faculties in order to reconnect the thread of memory and history.
Francesco Cavaliere, Simone Pappalardo, Roberto Pugliese and Nicola Ratti: these are the artists taking part in the exhibition, who will create sound installations and performances to access the dimension and relationship which exists between perception and consciousness. “Consciousness is the field, perception is the filter; the process of listening is the door that allows us to widen our perception, while sound represents the extension of our conscience/knowledge”. Everything is linked to the history of the seventeenth century building that houses contemporary cluster, focusing on its transition from a private to a public building, thanks to Pasquale di Pietro who purchased the space in 1784, turning it into the first school for the deaf in Italy.
The works will uncover the origins and functions of the Palace, making them visible through listening. The graphic score Glass Salt Crystal Tongues by Francesco Cavaliere can be seen as a sculpture while sounds and words are spread throughout the space using vases. Simone Pappalardo creates an organic system, in ‘concert’ with the function of social organ(ism) which the Palace was intended for. The speakers of Acoustic Tensions, by Roberto Pugliese, construct a sound-visual architecture actively involving the viewer. Nicola Ratti’s live performance invites the audience to listen through the use and spectacularisation of language in real time.
Caterina Tomeo enjoys the fruits of her didactic engagement with the presentation of the work by Daniela Gentile, a second-year student in “Multimedia Arts and Design” at RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts – winner of an art residency at the Spatial Sound Institute in Budapest. This is an urban project circulated using QR codes that, located in seven different Rome neighbourhoods, become an “acoustic portrait” of these places.
The rich programme of events starts with the presentation of Caterina Tomeo’s latest book: sonic arts. between perceptive experience and active listening, published by Castelvecchi. The book was launched on 14 November at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome and is now at the centre of a conversation and discussion involving other experts in the field: Leandro Pisano, Giacomo Albert and Peppe Allegri. A way to get ready to actively engage with the heart of the event and exhibition.
Ritualità e sinestesia, series of events curated by Caterina Tomeo, November 28, 2019 – May 20, 2020
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November 28, Sonic Arts. tra esperienza percettiva e ascolto attivo, book launch with Leandro Pisano, Giacomo Albert and Peppe Allegri
«Active Listening», exhibition curated Caterina Tomeo, January 10 – February 10, 2020
Contemporary Cluster, Palazzo Cavallerini Lazzaroni
images: (cover 1) Otolab, «op7», frame da audio-visual performance, 2007 (2) Roberto Pugliese, «Acustiche tensioni matematiche-V», 2015,metal, plexiglass, speakers, audio cable, metal cable, audio composition (3 – 5) Massimiliano Viel (4-6) Contemporary Cluster at Palazzo Cavallerini Lazzaroni
