Wave Forms and Tunnel Visions I: Subterranean Cagliari , site specific performance, Cagliari, Sardinia, October 2015, field recordings, recorded interviews, 8 channel piece for transducers, mobile sculptural listening-walls
The work is the result of a five week long residency exploring four subterranean places in Cagliari, Sardinia: Cripta de Santa Restituta, the Roman Cistern in the Botanical Garden, the punic Tuvixeddu, and the crypt of the old town hall–where the performance took place as well. The city is mainly built from the limestone extracted from quarries beneath town’s surface. “The more empty space under the ground, the more construction and creation outside, or let’s think of it in this way: the evolution and the developement of the city means also the transformation of the subterranean” (quote from Enrico, an archeologist). Over a month period in October 2015, I made audio recordings with binaurals, contact microphones, a stethoscope and hydrophones at these places. In conversations with a selected group of people, an archeologist, an economist, a palaeontologist and a neighbour, we “filtered” the subterranean spaces through common interests, as an issue of property relations between the dead and living, histories of absence and the limestone´s material and immaterial transformations throughout time.
The performance: Three spaces in the crypt of the medieval town hall were sonified by 4 mobile walls and 4 fixed walls with transducers. A composition based on the field recordings and conversations were played out through the walls. The mobile walls created various spaces and acoustics (see sketch) throughout the piece.
Curated by Maria Paola Zedda for the Cagliari capitale italiana della cultura. Many thanks to Daniela Cascella, Giulia Palomba, the students and staff at the Art school college and Arciconfraternita della Solitudine. Thank you for great conversations Rosa, Enrico, Gian and Mancosu Sardex
Wave Forms and Tunnel Visions II, 3. December 2015, A version of the work, now turned into a 4 channel listening piece with voice over, was made for INTIMACY – Art Writing the Body, curated by Daniela Cascella with Reah Dal and Martin Glaz Serup for Art Writing Århus, Denmark
Photos from the performance in Cagliary by Stefania Scani:
