An investigation – abstract

I’ve always been fascinated by watching and listening to the way we as human beings react to finding ourselves placed into different environments.

Specifically, I am intrigued by the way we manage the challenge of being in a space which is not created to be the stage where we can perform our personality and actively interact with the objects and the people who surround us, as a museum is.

Being in a museum limits our personality exposure, at the same time it engages our senses and sensitivity.
Is such context creating a push towards the outside in a context which makes such expression difficult to be exposed?

A modern art museum visit is able to stress such experience way further, visitors can sometimes be pushed to face languages and contents which run on the very border of comprehension and social acceptability.
As human beings we interact with habitats through different ways of using our physicality; I think that more or less consciously and intentionally our presence affirms itself through the sounds we make.

My first audio recording of my visit through a modern art exposition happened when visiting the Serpentine Galleries in London, a funny feeling of displacement imbued me because of sounds coming from both sides of the exposition internal entrance.
After visiting the Serpentine Galleries I visited the Tate Modern.

I recorded my walk through the different rooms, trying to notice the relation between the space, the exhibited works of art and the way people were managing their presence: imposing it or trying to be as transparent as possible.
While walking through the expositions’ rooms I was caught by another delicate emotional resonance.
A new element was coming into play, directly connected to a more emotional layer.
Temporal suspension and physical floating were somehow represented by the experience of walking through the artworks.
The peak was reached when I entered the room where the video work by Gülsün Karamustafa “Memory of a Square” was playing.
Something had happened.
By entering that room I understood what I would have done with the recordings I was collecting.
Back to my studio I recorded a musical dialogue over the environmental noise of walking through art spaces, art places.
A sort of counterpoint in play between my physicality and the sonic trace of the space.

I’ve been visiting and recording the space of modern art museums and expositions, such as: Guggenheim and MoMA NYC, MoMA SF, MOCA LA, MCA in Chicago, Modern art museum in Philadelphia, Mudam in Luxembourg, Stedelijk in Amdsterdam, Lenbachhaus in Munich, Serpentine and Tate Modern in London and Hangar Bicocca in Milan.

Luca Formentini:

Original recordings of the museums (visited in 2016 and 2017), all instruments, recording, mixing and mastering.
Concept and production.

Mastering consultancy by Stefano Castagna

This audio work is released under Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) and free digital distribution via Laverna music label www.laverna.net

Cover: original painting by Patrizio Vanessi, 2019