CAMERA MUSIC
a new project by Giovanni Verrando and mdi ensemble
for voice, 5 performers & video
commission by Associazione musicAdesso
“ […] les humains sont plutôt des prolongements d’un environnement, d’un milieu de vie, ou des membres d’un collectif plus large englobant des non-humains, plutôt que des forces qui s’approprient des territoires”
Philippe Descola
“La possibilité d’un art relationnel (un art prenant pour horizon théorique la sphère des relations humaines et son contexte, plus que l’affirmation d’un espace symbolique et privé), témoigne d’un bouleversement radical des objectifs esthétiques, culturels et politiques mis en jeu par l’art moderne”
Nicolas Bourriaud
The general project
Camera Music is a collection of eight pieces, for male voice, five musicians and different forms of video.
It has to do with the notion of relational music – introduced by Nicolas Bourriaud and Harry Lehmann – because it connects different areas (music, text, images) and it keeps relations with the social environment.
Camera Music deals precisely with the human beings’ desire for power over the natural environment; conversely, it promotes the theory of continuity between human beings and nature.
It all starts from the anthropologist Philippe Descola’s denial of the typical Western opposition of nature and culture, of our own sense of nature and its supposed antithesis to cultural products.
Inside music, text and video, this topic is debated sometimes ironically, other times more painfully and harshly.
Two chapters
The eight pieces are divided into two chapters, that could be performed independently.
The first chapter examines human beings’ grotesque desire for power over the environment around them.
- Camera Music #1, “In praise of my splendid voice”.
The first piece of the cycle it’s the only movement already existing.
It’s written for e-guitar, e-cello, voice and commercials.
It talks about a typical wealthy male, who wants to subjugate the context around him.
Here you can watch and listen to the web version of
Camera Music #1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpsFVqRYr7M - Camera Music #2, “Je hais la haine”
- Camera Music #3 & #4, two AI-assisted pieces, which exploit Camera Music #1 as prototype/starting point, in order to produce a movement that converges on the prototype (Camera Music #3) and vice versa, a movement that diverges from the prototype (Camera Music #4)
The second chapter deals with four different categories, introduced by Philippe Descola to explain the relationships between human beings and nature:
- Camera Music #5, refers to animism
- Camera Music #6, refers to totemism
- Camera Music #7, analogism
- Camera Music #8, naturalism
a few frame
Giovanni Verrando
https://www.giovanniverrando.net
mdi ensemble
https://www.mdiensemble.com/
Associazione musicAdesso
https://www.mdiensemble.com/associazione-musicadesso/
Project referent: Paolo Fumagalli, mdi ensemble
paolofumagalli@yahoo.it
+39 3471364439