ALESSANDRO LIBRIO

Curated by  N38E13

 

 

 

 

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 ARCA KERCIS and DESHIELO are two art works (video/sound) by Alessandro Librio made during the art residency in Patagonia, in the year 2020, in collaboration with the art organization LiquenLab (Punta Arenas, Chile) and Fondazione Orestiadi (Gibellina,  Italy), curated by N38E13.

ARCA KERCIS

A three day trip along the Strait of Magellan in Patagonia, on board on a boat among the glaciers in the south of the world, becomes an opportunity for a new sound research and for its formalization in a project. The boat is equipped with ropes and springs. The maritime vessel becomes a sound device sailing the sea and resounding in the air. It is led by the artist and unpredictable in its comparison and dialogue with nature. The device, designed and tuned by the artist, establishes a dialogue with a place without the permanent presence of man. A suspended natural landscape. The artist acts directly on the strings placed on the bow of the boat. Performer and improviser faces an unusual instrument; a wind (an aeolian) harp sailing on the sea. It does not only suffer wind action but meets it. He pinches the strings, as usual with another traditional musical instrument, the violin, also equipped with strings that produces sound through the vibration of them. He moves on the bow of the boat looking for subtle and deep sonorities, new and hidden, activating a dialogue with nature and its forces.

The human being overwhelmed by intellect performs sound together with the wind, also a performer, devoid of intellect but dominating the existence of man. Librio seeks a man’s original condition, conscious of nature’s dominion over man, and disposed to the loss of intellect, in an attempt to accord himself to nature. The springs, another resonant element to the wind and pinched by the artist, soft and flexible, they sway and contract. Looks like an extension of the wind, boneless arms. The sound returns to the strings placed on the bow of the boat, and then return to them, determining a circularity of sound, which even if answered to a question would propose a new one, and so endless, as the gaze on the horizon of man alludes.

The result is a visual and sound composition that refers to a temporal suspension, where an imaginative suggestion crosses the time of the place. The resonance of the strings leads back to an echo of past presences of indigenous men, as voices of a past so far but so present at the same time. The springs generate a violent and shrill sound, carrying the suggestions of the past into a future already present; the impression of the drama of a man who, even though does not directly contaminate the place, is able to influence the results of its change.

Arca Kercis was a good spirit of the nomadic tribe of the Kawésqar, Natives of South America. According to their tradition, their God gave support to the shipwrecked through food, water and timber in case of shipwreck. The Kawésqar had a sensitive relationship with the natural world they lived in. It was an animist tribe devoted to navigation as a medium to get in touch themselves with their ancestors. 

 

DESHIELO

The video-sound “Deshielo” made among the glaciers in Patagonia, it is the first sound study on ice melting. In the natural landscape of a glacier, a temporary landing place during the journey along the Strait of Magellan, the artist puts microphones in contact with an ice block, detecting sounds as subtle as violent of its thawing process.

The freezing of water involves the presence of air enclosed, or guarded, within it. The air released by the thaw creates subtle sound explosions. The resulting sound composition brings into dialogue two primary elements, water and air. A natural composition that originated during the “ice age”. A hidden score traced by the artist; a sound archaeology that reveals a distant time and a contemporary drama.

Ennio Pellicanò / N38E13