[spectre] Exploding Cave

Thu Apr 9 01:37:25 CEST 2009

Sorry for any crosspostings

C.S.O.A. Cox18
In Collaboration with Digicult, with the partecipation of JointSventure, 
Vocecov, Dorkbot Milan
Presents:

EXPLODING CAVE
Days of free research between cinema, sound, video and digital

17th - 18th of April 2009
C.S.O.A. Cox18
Via Conchetta 18 - Milan

Info: cox18 at inventati.org ; info at digicult.it
Info: http://cox18.noblogs.org ; 
http://www.digicult.it/En/2009/ExplodingCave.asp

Curated by : Marco Mancuso (Digicult director, art critic and curator), 
Marco Lorenzin (Cox18), Claudia D'Alonzo (freelance art critic and curator)

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Trafficando con le forze tecnologiche emergenti, tra il 1966 e il 1967 Andy 
Warhol crea l'Exploding Plastic Inevitable, formando uno spazio 
contradditorio e sperimentale. Invece di una loro naturalizzazione, 
produceva un montaggio che scomponeva lo spazio nel quale diversi media 
interferivano ed entravano in competizione gli uni con gli altri (...). 
Improvvisamente, il ritmo della musica suonata dai Velvet Underground e 
dall'attrice/cantante Nico, i giochi di luce, i movimenti dei diversi film 
di Warhol, le performance dei ballerini si univano per creare qualcosa di 
significativo, ma prima di cogliere il senso di quello che stava avvenendo, 
tutto diventava nuovamente confuso e caotico. Il rumore ti colpiva. Volevi 
urlare, o lanciarti in una danza sfrenata, dovevi muoverti, agire (.). 
Nell'apparente oscurità e nel caos dell'Exploding Plastic Inevitable, si 
poteva trovare una possibilità di trasformazione, se non di liberazione". - 
[Branden W. Joseph, My Mind Split Open]

The Milan we know has been planned, starting from the 1950's, in a way 
similar to that of the organization of work, the districts are separated by 
classes, the distances are calculated between workplaces and houses. You 
plan a specific family. You plan a certain type of house (...). The general 
feeling was that of a crystallized future, dominated by events mainly 
incomprehensible and not to be participated to (...). In the 'existentialist 
cave' of 1950's Milan, the traditional codes of the "Milanese" ballroom were 
replaced by the experimentation of new musical genres and new exchange 
methods between sounds and visions that in turn involved specific dynamics. 
The relationship of seduction was evident in the liberation of the body 
moved by musical rhythms, not anymore by the 'classical dance forms' of the 
dance hall. People's looks are freed of the bourgeois aesthetics of the 
'jacket and tie' (...) - [John Martin, Primo Moroni, La Luna sotto casa ]

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///Special productions: Otto von Schirach / Orgone (otolab) - In Zaire 
(C.Rocchetti+G.I.Joe) / Virgilio Villoresi

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With a double reference both to the "existentialist caves" of 1950's Milan 
and the experimentation of Andy Warhol's "Exploding Plastic Inevitable", 
"Exploding Cave" is a 2-days event that will be held in Milan on April 17th 
and 18th, in the spaces of Cox18, structured in a series of meetings, 
workshops and performances that investigate the relationship and the least 
common denominator that ties cinema, sound, video and digital arts.

Organized by the same Cox18 with the collaboration of Digicult, Exploding 
Cave suggests the idea of an explosion, of an effort to "go beyond" the 
normal audiovisual perception towards multiple directions, both in the 
practices of audiovisual creation and in the performative methods. It 
investigates the phenomenon of the "optical unconscious", the concept of 
matrix, the analysis of both production and fruition forms that work to the 
rediscovery of a primary root of the audiovisual language, a common core at 
the base of the contemporary dialogue among cinema, video and digital arts. 
Exploding Cave revises and desecrates a complex machinery, bringing to rapid 
combustion the images and sounds of the cinema-cathedral of Hollywood, of 
television and of the social (anti)media; it is a sudden storm for the 
expansion of stories, hallucinations and extraordinary dreams, but it is 
also a concrete demonstration of experiences, knowledge and criticism of the 
present; it opens a tear on the harmonic visions and on today's most 
deafening noises.

In a city that builds and models the social spaces through mechanisms of 
exclusion and consumption, in contrast to the municipal politics of 
repression and evacuation of autonomous spaces and self-managed realities in 
Milan and in Italy, Exploding Cave wants to reconstruct paths and moments of 
synthesis between experimentation of new social and creative forms, and 
involvement of other independent cultural realities in town, like 
JointSventure (http://www.myspace.com/jointsventure), Vocecov 
(http://www.myspace.com/vocecov) and Dorkbot Milano 
(http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotmil/). A space therefore built to overcome the 
typical spectacular construction of an event (creator and spectator, speaker 
and listener), with the purpose of creating a more open circle, less 
centered on the performance but based rather on the sharing of knowledge and 
experiences. In concrete terms, a moment to give the floor to the artists / 
artisans and the machines / software they use for their audiovisual 
production practice.

The formula thought for Exploding Cave is that of "a moment of free search", 
that allows the public - through a dynamic and articulated course - and the 
featured artists to start a dialogue that helps better understand the 
dynamics that unite cinema, sound and video to the universe of digital 
creation.

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FRIDAY 17TH OF APRIL

23.00 - 03.00
The opening of Exploding Cave is devoted to the relationship between sound 
and images, expressed through dynamics of research and experimentation 
especially in a performative context. An evening full of digital aesthetics, 
between noise sounds, glitch, electro, 8bit and generative visualizations of 
graphic codes in movement. The first live set will see the duo Komplex 
(Mariano Equizzi and Paolo Bigazzi - http://www.ottovonschirach.com/) that 
will introduce their live audiovisual set "Blood Electric", where the 
reading of the homonym cyber-text, through a clock fixed in bpm, produces a 
constant flow of data that are destined to the controlling of visual effects 
and sound generation: the sequence that is so produced is controlled through 
the I use of wireless sensors, and fed by a series of pre-registered images. 
Later the audiovisual improvisation live set consisting of one of the most 
important names of the international idm/electro/punk Otto von Schirach 
(Schematic - http://www.ottovonschirach.com/), and of one of the members of 
the Milanese collective otolab, Orgone (http://www.otolab.net). A live set 
which is expected full of energy and improvised elements, pushed towards the 
search of a total audiovisual and sensory involvement of the audience, 
something in between hardcore electronics and generative graphics. Lastly, 
the 8bit music of one of the most interesting names of this ever rich 
musical scene, the Swiss Stu (http://www.toondra.ru/en/motiongraphics.htm), 
that for the occasion will cross Game Boy and Atari with Milanese Tonylight 
(http://www.tonylight.it), who has been promoting this genre on a national 
basis for years.

SATURDAY, 18TH OF APRIL

16.00 - 18.00
Saurday will begin with an afternoon workshop with artists/hackers/designers 
that work on the thin line between creativeness and technological 
experimentation, realized in collaboration with Dorkbot Milan 
(http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotmil/): the objective is to build new tools and 
innovative platforms for the audiovisual production. The first appointment 
is with the newborn Popular Electric Laboratory (L.A.P.), consisting of the 
eclectic Milanese artist Tonylight and Peppo Lasagna, with the intention of 
planning and building electronic tools for audio/video applications, of 
developing open source interfaces fit to create sounds and images, videos, 
lights. For this event, LEP introduces its last projects: "Leploop", a small 
analog synth to produce music (http://tonylight-leploop.blogspot.com) and 
"Videomoog", a video synth to produce images of synthesis able to follow 
music. During the presentation, various prototypes will be observable, and 
it will be possible to listen to, and try, the tools, apart from exchanging 
ideas on the projects.

18.00 - 19.00
The late afternoon will be dedicated to the presentation of the 
Videoscreening cared for by Claudia Di Alonzo and Marco Lorenzin: an endless 
cycle projection of films, videos and short films, will then be held at 
night in the spaces underlying the area where live shows take place. This 
time we start from the sound experience, in order to directly connect it to 
the re-appropriation of images and preexisting films (found footage). We 
will move from the combinatory game by Alberto Grifi (Verifica Incerta), to 
the ironic contamination of films by Bruce Conner (A Movie; Mongoloid; Mea 
Culpa); from the collages by Stan Vanderbeek (Achoo Mr. Kerrooschev), to the 
anticipations of the video scratch by Dara Birnbaum (Technology / 
Transformation: Wonder Woman; Pop Pop Video); from the re-appropriation 
operated by René Viénet on the dialogues of an Hong Kong martial arts movie 
( La Dialectique Peut-Elle Casser Des Briques?) to the ironic and 
disrespectful de-construction of voices and gestures by Johan Soderberg 
(Surplus; Read My Lips; The Voice); from the criticism of the television 
images through repetitions, slowing down and overlaps by Duvet Brothers 
(Blue Monday; War Machine) and Gorilla Tapes (Death Valley Days), to the 
improvement of the scratch video brought by the collective EBN (Commercial 
Entertainment Product), a technique that derives from the revolution of 
sampling and remixing sounds born during the 1970's in the Bronx, with Hip 
Hop. The screening will be closed by the mash ups of Eclectic Method (U2 
ZooTV Remix) and the trailers on commission of AddictiveTV (Snakes on a 
Plane; Iron Man).

19.00 - 21.00
On prime time Saturday, there will be a meeting with the artists that will 
perform live during the evening, introduced and moderated by Marco Mancuso. 
This will be the chance to get to know from an insider point of view the 
"modus operandi" of all musicians, video artists and designers involved - an 
"open-machine" meeting.

23.00 - 03.00
The night is finally devoted to the live performances in the central hall. 
Echran (Fabio Volpi, Davide de Col the and Accursio Graffeo - 
http://www.myspace.com/echran) is a project of audiovisual research where a 
cinema environment is created in which the soundtrack influences and deforms 
the movie materials used in the live visual set. Echran offers a live set 
split in two parts: in the first one "Stardust" the visuals develop starting 
from a sequence with a close up of Charlotte Rampling's face, in the second, 
the visions of A.Tarkowsky are reconstructed through some of his famous 
masterpieces, like Solaris and Sacrifice. Later on, the audiovisual live set 
coming from the second production of Exploding Cave with the participation 
of JointsVenture and Vocecov: the electro-acoustic improvisation group In 
Zaire (Claudio Rocchetti + G.I.Joe - 
http://www.myspace.com/claudiorocchetti) will take the floor in an energetic 
performance halfway between electronic, analog and percussive sounds, 
accompanied for the occasion by the special visual and cinema talent that is 
Virgilio Villoresi (http://www.myspace.com/vjvirgilio), for a totally 
exceptional AV set, very motivating and exciting for the audience. Finally, 
one of the historical names of the club / underground scene of Milan, Dj 
Pier, will accompany with his techno / electro sounds the projects of 
sonorization of "Dillinger è morto" (live editing of the 1969 masterpiece by 
Marco Ferreri beginning from a sampling of the work in 69 parti and 19 
details) and "CINEmatic eXperience" (vjset), remixed in real time by 
ilcanediPavlov! Project by Alessio Galbiati, focused on a live performance 
with a special attention to the cinematic image, which was born as a part of 
DJCINEMA and quickly became a performative project. ilcanediPavlov! 
collaborates since its beginning with the cinema culture digital magazine 
Rapporto Confidenziale (http://www.rapportoconfidenziale.org/).

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Program: Friday, 17th of April

23.00 - 23.45 - sala centrale
"Blood Electric" live av concert: Komplex (Paolo Bigazzi / Mariano Equizzi)

00.00 - 00.45 - sala centrale
Live set + generative visual: Otto von Schirach / Orgone (otolab)

01.00 - 03.00 - sala centrale
8bit av set: Stu / Schnauz / Tonylight

Program: Saturday, 18th of April

16.00 - 18.00 - archivio Calusca
Workshop of audiovisual experimentation: L.E.P. - Laboratorio Elettrico 
Popolare

18.00 - 19.00 - archivio Calusca
Videoscreening: a cura di Claudia D'Alonzo e Marco Lorenzin

19.00 - 21.00 - archivio Calusca
Presentations: Paolo Bigazzi / Mariano Equizzi (Komplex) e Virgilio 
Villoresi moderati da Marco Mancuso

23.00 - 23.45 - sala centrale
Live AV set: Echran

00.00 - 00.45 - sala centrale
Live AV concert: In Zaire (C.Rocchetti + G.I.Joe) / Virgilio Villoresi

1.00 - 03.00 - sala centrale
Cinematic techno set: Dj Pier + ilcanediPavlov!

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DIGICULT is an Italian cultural and editorial project concerning promotion 
and share of art and digital culture, spreading the impact of new 
technologies and sciences on art, design and contemporary society. DIGICULT 
is based on the active participation of 40 professional people about, who 
represent the first wide Italian Network of journalists, curators, artists 
and critics in the field of electronic culture. DIGICULT is also the editor 
of the monthly magazine DIGIMAG produce an electronic music and audiovisual 
podcast, DIGIPOD, and has also its own newsletter international service 
DIGINEWS.  DIGICULT in finally involved with in many side activties with the 
art agency DIGIMADE
http://www.digicult.it/en/
http://www.digicult.it/digimag_eng/
http://www.digicult.it/podcast
http://www.digicult.it/agency 