Xing -- Live Arts Week

Bologna, Apri 25-May 5 2012

(pics with descriptions down)

web site -- very complete, documentation and texts.

Nowhere from the outside, piano-performance by
Marino Formenti

Palazzo Re Enzo from the outside

-------- There is a special allure in the previously unexperienced. As crowds grow accustomed to certain states of spectatorship, excitement becomes more about the comfort of repetition and less about perception. While the established cultural forms and institutions mostly allow for what has already proved successful (be it popular or high-brow entertainment), finding somewhere to experience this emotion proves difficult. Parallel to these cultural offers, and responding to a lack of curiosity, is where new spaces, dynamics, forms, and scenes are developed.

In this regard, Luigi Russolo’s manifesto “The Art of Noises” (1913) superbly describes the boredom of classical music against the new sounds of the machine-filled industrial city of his times. The whole manifesto—except for Marinetti’s onomatopoeic glorification of war— seems as if it could be relevant time after time if only the variants of classical and noise are substituted by others like pop and electronic. It is an energetic and unapologetic decree of change. I’ll settle for quoting just this:

         “The ear of an eighteenth-century man could never have endured the discordant intensity of certain chords produced by our orchestras (…). To our ears, on the other hand, they sound pleasant, since our hearing has already been educated by modern life, so teeming with variegated noises. But our ears are not satisfied merely with this, and demand an abundance of acoustic emotions.”

So who starts creating new acoustic emotions, and for whom? They do it for themselves, the unsatisfied, at least at first, then the curious come, and a new audience is created. These reflections bring be to Xing, in Bologna, which has been activating new audiences for a while.

Xing is a cultural network directed and coordinated by Silvia Fanti, Daniele Gasparinetti, and Andrea Lissoni. They have been active as Xing (they were previously part of the Link project) since 2001, from their headquarters in Raum space. Since then, they have organized interdisciplinary events devoted to contemporary culture, with a nomadic approach, in Bologna and abroad. Early in 2012 the Dutch duo Fucking Good Art published “Italian conversations; Art in the age of Berlusconi,” an extensive collection of conversations with different Italian cultural workers. In this publication, Silvia Fanti explains: “I’ve been doing this already for twenty years. Since the beginning it was very simple. We were moved by a desire of direct knowledge. We invited the artists that we would like to see. We, ourselves, were the potential audience.” This year I had the chance to visit Bologna during their new festival Live Arts Week and form part of their extended audience, to see what they wanted to see, it turned out it was also what I wanted to see.

Live Arts Week was seven days of events that took place in six different spaces in the city center of Bologna. I had the chance to visit five of these places, and each one grew more enigmatic than the previous one, not only because of the events that took place inside them, but because the constant change of venues brought with it a kind of secret migrant audience, whose faces started to become familiar as we moved from one place to another, and this in turn created a feeling of intimacy. This activation of the center is clever also in that the uncommon settings leave behind any kind of established ideological associations with art institutions, concert halls, or theaters. It is important to point out, as Fanti emphasized during the conversation we had on the last day of the festival, that these spaces are being used, but they will be left empty. Xing does not fill them with art objects, nor are they planning to use them permanently - quite the opposite: the nature of most works is essentially performative, related to sound, other spaces are ambiences created by artists, and all will revert to their previous state after the festival is over. 

As mentioned above, during the last day of the festival I had a short but substantial conversation with Silvia Fanti and Daniele Gasparinetti. Gasparinetti mentioned that, parting from Plato’s ideas on democracy in The Republic, specifically the passage where the philosopher states that the only beauty of democracy lies in the many ‘colors’ that can develop within it, Xing is taking advantage of this positive side of the democratic order. This in fact concurs with their use of multiple locations and their interdisciplinary program. We focused on the festival and its venues as each one of them has a different story. These stories are interesting in that they show how Xing uses the many colors available to them.

Palazo Re Enzo inside, day-time
Installation and sound  by musician, artist,
and fashion designer Ottaven web site

One of the central venues of the festival is Palazzo Re Enzo, originally built in 1245, it is mostly used for elite dinners and parties. Seven years ago they achieved their goal of opening it to the public for a previous festival, and now the building also hosts the roBOt digital festival, which alone attracts another whole audience. This venue featured installations, ambiences, sound pieces, and a live electronic music performance with both local and international artists. Close to Palazzo Re Enzo is the Spazio Carbonesi, a private building whose young owners have grown in close contact with Xing over the years, and also share part of their ideology. Carbonesi opened every day at 6 pm and was used for concerts and performances. Another venue was the Museo della Storia di Bologna, a bizarre over-technological, Disney-like museum which, among other things, features an animated 3-D 15 min. film on the history of Bologna. Here, in a small room, Xing presented a collaborative experimental project by a group of young Italian artists.  Another venue was the Museo della Storia di Bologna, a bizarre over-technological, Disney-like museum which, among other things, features an animated 3-D 15 min. film on the history of Bologna. Here, in a small room, Xing presented a collaborative experimental project by a group of young Italian artists. Another venue was the Museo della Storia di Bologna, a bizarre over-technological, Disney-like museum which, among other things, features an animated 3-D 15 min. film on the history of Bologna. Here, in a small room, Xing presented a collaborative experimental project by a group of young Italian artists. Hotel Palace, which hosted a performance of French performance artist Yves-Nöel Genod, is exactly that, a Hotel. Fanti and Gasparinetti called it a new kind of squat: after a vain search for a suitable venue, the artist suggested using the lobby of the hotel where he was staying at. And so it was that there, they did one of the most ambiguous and interesting pieces I have ever been part of (as opposed to seen), one that really went beyond the distinction between members of the audience and performers growing from a normal cocktail party to a kind of decadent Buñuel movie. The last place I visited is the space of a store that had gone out of business a few months earlier, they called it ‘Nowhere’. Here, pianist Marino Formenti performed every day from 11 a.m. to 22 p.m., playing music by the likes of Cage and Eno. These performances were free and open to the public, and the space had a series of mattresses for the attendees that wanted to stay several hours, reading or lying down comfortably. A kind of place of rest in the heart of the city. The performance was also streamed live on the festival’s webpage, an extension of the festival that comes from ‘Nowhere’ into far away audiences’ homes. 

Palazzo Re Enzo big hall, inside, at night.
Live media by Orphan Fairytale, Dennis Tyfus/Vom Grill, and The Claw

Dennis Tyfus/ Vom Grill, singing and dancing. Ending with an electronic
slow version of The girl from Ipanema, high-pitched tropical feel in Bologna
directly from Antwerp

The Claw (Kingdom, Total Freedom, Nguzunguzu (Los Angeles)
Live electronic music, 4 person band More info

Antonia Baher, D is for Dog, Italian premiere
Part 1... synchronizing recorded sounds of her mother
and her mother's dog.

Part 2.... Story telling

Part 3.... amazing vocal performance, from human
language to dog noise. web site

Falling floors at the Museum of the History
of Bologna

Etruscan life size diorama

Light box of Bologna old city map, narrated re-enactment
on the plasma, and a motor bike

Giovanni Anceschi and Luca Trvisani's project with
10 young artists, including GUM Studio's Namsal
Siedlecki, who explained the project, a bit, to me.

Resulting picture, at a dinner.

Yves-Nöel Genod, Hotel Palace, Italian premier