“Eco e Narciso. Cultura Materiale/Musica”, curated by Daniela
Cascella and Rebecca De Marchi, will involve the contribution of eight
internationally acclaimed experimental musicians and sound artists,
who have been commissioned five site-specific sound installations –
one for each location selected among the ecomuseum network of the Provincia
di Torino.
Why was sound chosen as the artistic subject which will be featured
in the 2006 edition of Eco e Narciso? Without any doubts, sound as a
means of strong and independent expression has been gaining the attention
of museums and institutions during the end of the last millennium. Experimentation
with sound (and its combination with the visual and performance arts)
has been around for a long time and therefore has a very long history
and heritage: however, only recently has this history started to emerge
and sound has gained the right, along with all the other artistic languages,
to conquer a space outside the traditional “boundaries”
where music is performed and listened to. Sound has set off to conquer
everyday-life spaces, museums, exhibitions.
The artists taking part in the Eco e Narciso project don’t use
sound as a linear medium (i.e developing along a well-defined time span):
they rather employ it to give birth to places and atmospheres, to enhance
the charm of a location, to underline its hidden contrasts, as an exquisitely
plastic means of creating “audio-landscapes”.
This is the reason why the musicians involved have been asked to use
solely sound to create their installations, without resorting to no
other artistic languages: the curators’ aim is to give as much
space as possible to a means of expression that, notwithstanding its
immateriality and elusiveness, has the ability to capture the attention
in a profound and subtle manner. It does so often venturing into new
ground as regards common perception, but this is ultimately the hidden
challenge in the project: to attain a new kind of participation in the
public and, through the employment of sounds throughout the ecomuseums
– sounds that are strictly connected to the places themselves
– try to trigger new interest in these locations, showing them
under a different light, and uncovering their often-concealed features.
The project intends to address the local public as much as the international
one, by commissioning a number of challenging new site–specific
works from the musicians.
The project is divided into three phases. A preliminary study phase,
thus organized: Sojourn on location of the musicians, who will thus
enter in contact with the local life during a period of about five days
and will be recording sounds in the area of assignment – sounds
which will be subsequently reworked into the installations, and Meet
& greet / presentation in Turin where the landmarks of each musician’s
work will be relived through a series of guided listening sessions and
a talk with the curators. Installation of the musicians’ work
in the ecomuseums and official opening ceremony; the artists will develop
site-specific sound installations that is placed in the various locations;
the opening ceremonies was on July 14th,15th and 16th 2006 and the installations
remain open to the public till 24th September 2006.A CD ECO
E NARCISO. PRESENZE SONORE contain the excerpts from the audio tracks
of each installation and it is possible buy on-line.