MANICULA

A project by ENRICO MALATESTA and CHIARA PAVOLUCCI.

Manicula is an artistic research format aimed at combining practices involving image and sound in relation with the themes of CITY and WALKING, with a CALM DRIFT that connects different URBAN SPACES and TERRITORIES in a common network.

Manicula consists in a collection of ACTIVE LISTENING and OBSERVATION EXERCISES aimed at investigating the acoustic and visual phenomena present in some parts of the city; the areas of activation of the practices are not declared, but indicated by reference symbol. The project is a kind of TREASURE HUNT and it does not require the presence and mediation of a performer/artist/guide. Each individual decides how to undertake the search for symbols and how to use the available scores to investigate, on the one hand, the relationship between SOUND AND SPACE through the use of the body and, on the other hand, the observation of VISUAL PHENOMENA related to the movement of light and its interaction with surfaces/layouts of the city. Manicula also invites people to continue the exploration by enriching it with their own personal research. No specific knowledge or skills are required to try the proposed exercises.

Manicula is an OPEN PROJECT that also includes live performances, workshop as well as a visual and textual JOURNAL that documents the research and the WALKING PATHS carried out in situ by the authors.

please visit: www.manicula.it

E SôNA

"Farmer, blood of the servant,
your plow is left without music"


E SÔNA ("It sounds" in Romagna dialect) is the title of the project developed by artist Enrico Malatesta for Aequusol VER MMXXI. The work - which will have an evolution time corresponding to the duration of the entire Spring season - investigates the relationship between sound as a medium, form of movement and space, connecting elements of folklore and rural Romagna rituality with decadent, hidden and rarely perceived factors of the agricultural landscape of Abruzzo. It will manifest itself with performative actions and pedagogical programs dedicated to active listening in relation to material culture and the role of sound and acoustic phenomena, starting with beliefs and pagan liturgies originating in rural Romagna. Fulcrum of the research is the Cavéja Dagli Anëll, an ancient sound shaking device, equipped with tuned metal rings and used both in agricultural work and in particular superstitious-propitiatory rituals. The intent is to transfer the energy of these instruments in the context of the performing arts, going beyond the boundaries and the concept of local culture and restoring vitality to memory and popular sound habits in the contemporary context.

ph_Caveja from the collection exhibited at MET – Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente di Romagna, Santarcangelo di Romagna - Rimini.

Fo.Cu.S. Fondazione Culture Santarcangelo – Musei Comunali Santarcangelo

Se siamo assenti suonare qui

My grandfather is a farmer, radio amateur and an accumulator. I can recognize his way to accumulate very common through the people of his age that come from the rural area; the aim of the accumulation is totally functional toward preserving fragments, iron, wood and all the components of electrical and mechanical devices that can be used to fix malfunctions of the machines and tools used in the agricultural field. Nonetheless, I noticed that he has a slight attraction to sounds and sometimes he reassembles things creating rudimental sound-devices that are scattered in the field and that start to be used by my family – and the people reaching home to buy vegetables and fruits – like entertainment and/or sound signals.

In the spring of 2023 I am going to start a series of sound-based and self organized events revolving around the sound-devices and radios built/assembled my grandfather around my family's agricultural field.

• TRUCK HORN 

• CYMBAL: an old and very cheap cymbal that I bought in a flea market (more than 15 years ago) and that I had trashed in the garbage. I found this cymbal in the field in the summer of 2016, reassembled with a system of suspension made with a car belt, two screws and a rusty iron knocker. The cymbal and the knocker, in that condition, are let free to move on the wind spreading small sounds by touching one to another. My grandfather hung the cymbal because when he hears its sound he remembers me and the time when I was playing the drums all the day in his shed. My grandmother, on the other hand, has started to beat it as loud as possible in order to advise to my grandfather when the lunch is ready: she is tired to shout at him every time.

• RADIO (battery-powered)

SOUND SPACE BODY

Incredibly happy to present a new version of SOUND SPACE BODY, a listening workshop conceived and realized with Attila Faravelli that is going to be presented in the frame of PARADISE • IL PAESAGGIO CHE VORREMMO POTER DESIDERARE, a project curated by Chiara Bersani and Giulia Traversi for SPAZIO KOR in Asti, Italy.

From November 30th to December 4th at SPAZIO KOR, Asti.

Aural tools

The releases I worked on for Attila Faravelli's AURAL TOOLS are available:

• BILIA
• PIETRA DI LANGA with a text by anthropology Tim Ingold.

Aural Tools uses small runs of simple objects to document the material and conceptual processes of specific musicians' sound production practice. It is a series of devices for relating sound to space, the listener and the body in ways unavailable through traditional recorded media such as CDs or LPs.

i lift
one stone
and i am
thinking

[Robert Lax – new poems, 1962]

Thanks to the permission from the ROBERT LAX LITERARY TRUST I have officially started to work on a new, long-term project, revolving around the beauty of ROBERT LAX's poems.

Archive
Short Theater – Roma, Italy. September 2022
LFP Scuola Nomadica 2022 – Torri del Vajolet, Italy. July 2022

[pdf] • I LIFT ONE STONE AND I AM THINKING

Robert's portrait has been taken at Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, in 1985, by © Judith Emery.

ELEMENTI 2021 – 2022

Elementi is a festival dedicated to contemporary music and performing arts whose intent is to present to the public the transversality of contemporary languages in relation to the emotional power of symbolic and uncontaminated landscapes of the Romagna region.
The project is curated by MAGMA and MU in collaboration with the Municipality of Cervia.

Line up of artists Includes Clara de Asís, Gigi Masin, France Jobin, Francesco Guerri, Sandro Mussida, Cristina Kristal Rizzo and Riccardo La Foresta.

Saline di Cervia ph © Chiara Pavolucci