Sound art residencies in Italy
Published
In the summer of 2017 four artists associated with BEK are invited for one week residencies in the rural region of Fortore in South Italy. The artists will produce and present site-specific works and interventions responding to the rural conditions, developed in collaboration with local communities.
The residencies are part of a bilateral sound art exchange program between Norway and Italy initiated by Interferenze/Liminera and Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK), curated by Leandro Pisano (IT) and Trond Lossius (NO).
About Liminaria
Leandro Pisano is curator at Liminaria, one of the projects developed by Interferenze New Arts Festival and taking place in different rural regions of South Italy; Irpinia, Sannio and Puglia (Barsento-Trulli area) since 2003. All these projects, founded and directed by him, draw on sound art, technocultures and the rural. From the original form of the art and new technologies Interferenze festival, a series of hybrid formats (residences, laboratories, workshops, research field projects) have been developed through the years, resulting in a research platform based on multidisciplinary and critical approaches inspired by new media, cultural and postcolonial Studies.
These projects work together with local communities in building “actions” within the territory, and aim to experiment with a series of interventions that – as inspired by concepts of re-territorialization, left-overness and self-reliance – are able to reconfigure rural space as an activity center where social capital, namely the set of networks of cooperatives among individuals and collectives, represents a central point for the re-valuation of local resources.
“Actions” made in place though this project relates to different fields: from art residencies/performances and cultural events to workshops on co-working with the local schools, from the optimization of networks to the testing of new hybrid formats of new technologies; all of which are considered in a perspective where innovation and transitions are made possible among these spaces, landscapes and local communities through the experience of sustainable strategies and practices.
Both Liminaria – as a project focused on a specific rural area, the Fortore region – and Interferenze New Arts Festival – as a broader research platform – investigate rural geographies and contexts – including “in-between” territories and border spaces – using sound theories and practices. These projects are based on the idea that distinct cultures of sound art and experimental music can be brought into dialogue with one another in a process aimed at reveal[ing] the culture of Sound. They aim to develop a relational context through the format of the artistic residency, drawing on an approach that claims the possibility of taking sound art beyond the walls of museums and galleries. It invites artists to experience different geographies, enabling a (re-)negotiation of the terms of art and knowledge production, empowering new relations and cross-cultural debates.
About the selected artists
Helene M. Førde works with installations and sculptural practises. Her works are site and context sensitive, and explore the perception, awareness, sensations, memories and stories of a place. Materials and techniques vary, but often involves sound or movable and mechanical/technical elements.
The interdisciplinary work of Gunhild Mathea Olaussen relates to scenic and performing arts as well as installations, exploring somatic perception through soundscapes where space, material, body and time are considered equally important. She is driven by an interest in tactility, embodied experience and dramaturgical sociology.
“The Atmospherics” collaborative project between Trond Lossius and Jeremy Welsh is a research into notions of “place”, explored through field recording in sound and video. Material collected on field trips is processed and edited to realise large-scale audio-visual installations in which aspects and elements of different locations are combined to produce a particular temporary place that refers to, but does not literally represent, actual places that have been visited and documented.
Gunhild Mathea Olaussen and Helene Førde visits Montefalcone di Valfortore July 10-15 2017, while Trond Lossius and Jeremy Welsh visit San Marco dei Cavoti September 4-9 2017. The residencies in the Fortore region will be based on, but also challenge, the existing practises and projects of the selected artists.
Photos by Gunhild Mathea Olaussen. Supported by the Municipality of Bergen.