Art Zoyd e Granular Synthesis
Performance a Borgo Valsugana 28.09.2002

THE REVIEW

Performance in Borgo Valsugana Finstral 28.09.2002 (within the Transart festival) Great success for the performance of Art Zoyd and Granular Synthesis in Borgo Valsugana. The two performances, part of the Transart festival, attracted about 400 people (mostly from Bolzano and Trento) to the long warehouse of the Finstral company. A very suggestive location, almost ideal for hosting the work of two interesting names in the multimedia research scene. The evening began with the performance of the French group Art Zoyd, who showcased the projection of "Nosferatu," a masterpiece film by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, on a giant screen, considered by Charlie Chaplin as the author who brought silent film to perfection. The uniqueness of Art Zoyd's work lies in the live rescore. The five musicians, positioned on the two steps on the side of the screen, are well visible to the audience thanks to a careful play of lights, which does not disturb the vision of the film. "Working more intensely on Nosferatu, we realized that a natural complicity between the images and our music was born. This is how we delved into Murnau's universe rather than that of other authors." Art Zoyd's music is imbued with electronic effects, cleverly combined with acoustic instruments and percussion. The result is an almost symphonic music, with extraordinary rhythm and vitality. Very appreciated. However, the evening was also characterized by intense cold, which many spectators were not prepared for. Much appreciated in this regard was the organizers' idea to set up a buffet with risotto and wine, and then have the audience move to the central part of the warehouse to watch the performance of Granular Synthesis. For Transart, they decided to present Modell5, one of the works from the early period of Granular Synthesis, in which Kurt Hentschläger and Ulf Langheinrich (these are the names of the two artists) worked on the relationship between man and machine. Modell5 is a work where the face of Akemi Takeya appears on four giant screens. The basic material for the performance consists of just under a minute of film showing a close-up of the Japanese performer's face. The final work highlights the work done on the image and sound. By isolating and assembling individual frames of the original video in different ways, Granular Synthesis presents another being on the screen, whose movements are wholly managed by the artists. Thus, on the screen, there is not Akemi Takeya, but a computer-processed image of reality. The resulting “music” comes from the audio of the original material. By sampling sound and image and giving each screen a different "time," Granular Synthesis is able to give a sort of rhythm to the work, flooding the audience with massive doses of low sounds that made the bodies of the spectators vibrate. A work of sure impact, welcomed with enthusiasm. "I saw a very attentive and focused audience," Ulf Langheinrich confided to us at the end of the show, "an ideal condition for the success of a good show. I am very satisfied. I'm starting to get attached to this land (in spring, Granular Synthesis participated in the Musicaxocchi exhibition (www.provincia.bz.it/musicaxocchi) in Bolzano with the Feld installation)." For completeness, we point out the artists' websites: http://www.cicv.fr/epidemic (management of Art Zoyd) www.granularsynthesis.info