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project reports
deabc archive
luca pancrazzi steve piccolo gak sato
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1. Contemporary Dust - Roland Ultra (2002) A printing factory in Milan, now out of business, previously a printer of fine art books. Only one of the original seven presses remains, the Roland Ultra, made in Germany in 1965. The rest of the factory is empty industrial space. We found the men who used to work there and got them involved in a performance/party. They cleaned the machine and got it working again. We recorded the sounds made by the machine in operation and edited them to create a surround-sound effect. The sounds were put on cassettes, using an ‘obsolete’ but very accessible technology, similar to that of the printing press. The old press softens the texture of a printed photograph with the adjustment of the 4-color register, just as the cassettes soften the impact of the industrial noise due to their low-fi quality. At the performance everyone was invited to bring a tape player. The factory was filled with the sounds of machines, recreating what it must have sounded like in the old days, in full operation. With spotlights on the press, the workers printed a poster by Luca Pancrazzi, a photograph of dust, which was given to all the visitors. While they were working (as the visual focus of the performance) Steve and Gak improvised on bass and theremin with the industrial sounds, while Luca Gemma used a megaphone to describe the technical qualities of the Roland Ultra with advertising slogans. Our operation was a success, in the sense that the owners of the factory have decided to keep the machine and use it further in the future. Our performance was a tribute to ‘obsolete’ things, techniques and people. Perhaps we should not always be in such a hurry to discard the old when we embrace the new. 2. Twoways (2002) This is part of a video installation for a new house in Berlin. The house has an interesting architectural layout in which the idea of a corridor being expanded makes a space of transit into a living space. The owner of the house is a flamenco dancer. We asked him to record the sound of his steps as he danced, without music, on a wooden platform. The video is composed of alternating images of a walk through the apartment under construction (showing the inner workings of the structure which are normally concealed) and a ‘walk’ through the drawers in an artist’s studio (as if seeing their content through the eyes of a mouse or an insect, or a probe violating the privacy of normally concealed places). The shift in scale is almost imperceptible at first glance between the house and the tiny drawers. The music is composed using the steps of the flamenco dancer, slowed, compressed, repeated with effects. This video goes together with another video shot from the roof of the building showing the surrounding city. When the work is completed there will be a presentation in Berlin where Gak and Steve play along with the recorded sounds of the city (from the roof). This brings the very private dimension of the inside of drawers, the steps, almost the heartbeat of the dancer, into relation with the world outside. In the finished house large floor-to-ceiling windows frame views of the city. 3. Carborundum dub (2001) This is part of a work created for Galleria Mazzoli in Modena. Luca Pancrazzi made sculptures by covering everyday objects with shards of sharp glass. He broke the glass himself, with a hammer, in hours and hours of work in the studio. The video shows the process. The sound of the breaking glass has been slowed down seven times slower than the original, yet it still seems high in pitch, almost like a gong or a bell. We edited the sound very precisely. Steve hums along, like a worker completely absorbed in his task, unaware that he is being watched or heard. In the gallery visitors could see the video and the glass sculptures. In a performance Luca smashed glass ‘live’, Gak processed the sounds with a computer while Steve sang along. Steve’s singing was also processed by Gak. |
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