ELYSEES BIARRITZ - PARIS

10-20 APRIL 2008

+39: CALL FOR ITALY / NEMO FESTIVAL 2008
Live Performances, Video Screenings, Urban Installations from modern Italian Electronic Art&Design

Curated by Marco Mancuso with the collaboration of Claudia D'Alonzo

Featuring:
otolab - op7
Mylicon/En - Put down the gun
Quayola - Path to abstraction
Videoscreening
Presentazione

Program:
+39 VideoScreening (curated by Claudia D'Alonzo): friday 11th of April 21.00
Presentation +39 (curated by Marco Mancuso): friday 11th of April 22.00 hrs
Live Set Quayola (“Path to Abstraction”): friday 11 th of April 22.45 hrs
Live Set Otolab (“op7”): friday 11th April 23.45 hrs
Live Set Mylicon/En (“Put down the gun”): saturday 12th of April 22.15 hrs

Presentation Text - by Marco Mancuso
Video Screening Text - by Claudia D'Alonzo
Video Screening Infos

After the European Premiere at Cimatics festival in Brussels last November 2007, Digicult will present the project +39:Call for Italy at the international festival Nemo in Paris, curated by the cultural association Arcadi from 10 th to 20 th of April 2008, one of the most important European meeting related to artistic and cultural transtitions between audiovisuals, music, cinema and design with digital tools. The project focuses on the develpoments in Electronic Art, Design and Culture in Italy in the last 10 years . With the project +39:Call for Italy, Digicult introduces some of the most experimental and suggestive Italian musicians, designers, graphic animators, video makers, sound artists, vjs and audiovisual artists, with projects of Live Cinema (Mylicon/En), Audiovisual Live Sets (Otolab and Quayola) and with a Video Screening curated by Claudia D'Alonzo of some of the most talented Italian video makers, video artists and graphic designer. The project is finally enriched with a keynote lecture/presentation by Marco Mancuso about +39:Call for Italy concept and the developments of the presented Digital Art forms in Italy

Following the Italian cultural tradition in design and project, extending it to the ultimate forms of audiovisual art and creativity linked to the usage of new and digital media, the exhibition “+ 39” wants to be a breathing space on the artistic evolution of some among the most representative protagonists of the most recent Italian electronic scene.

Without any celebratory ambition, conscious of the intrinsic value of the presented works, the exhibition “+ 39” , articulated through a series of performances, video exhibits and urban installations, is the first retrospective on those artists, musicians, designers, videomakers, vjs and programmers who, in the last 10-15 years in Italy, have consciously developed languages and easthetics within an ever-changing and spreading cultural ambit.

“+ 39” is therefore the first opportunity for a whole movement of professional Italian creatives working in the digital domain to get together and be acknowledged as a proper ‘scene'. The term is abused of, loved and hated, still it is indicative of a cultural-artistic current , of common ideological-creative grounds that unite human and professional experiences, contexts and ambits that are sometimes very far apart. The Italian scene is ready for international confrontation. Far from being exhaustive, “+ 39” wants to uncover the existence of a movement , show an imagery , highlight work and project methods that are linked to the country and its protagonists.

The conscious spectator shall then recognize traces of Italian experimental video art tradition in the live-cinema project “Put down the gun” by the duo Mylicon/En, wonderful attempt of micro-narratives and figurative suggestions to seek an additional interaction between audio and video, in which an important role is played by the contrast between images produced by totally analogic tools and an electro/digital sound produced by laptop or synthesizer. Internationally representing Italian design applied to new technologies, code, audiovisual research and interactivity, Op7 - an audiovisual performance by the Otolab collective - reinterpreting optical art with a strongly synaesthetic approach that links electronic music and visual scenography. Moreover, the live audiovisual project Path to Abstraction by Quayola , is one the best examples how the school of Italian graphic design, video art and electronic music have evolved thanks to the crossover between academic and underground cultural ambits.

Digicult's project at Nemo Festival in Paris is rounded off by a rich and varied video screening curated by Claudia D'Alonzo, member of the collective and editorial staff of Digicult. The potentialities of the screening reside in the ample and complete vision of all forms of creativity associated to videomaking, videoclips, audiovisual synaesthesy, research, graphic animation and illustration. Niko Stumpo, Fabio Franchino, Blu, Mylicon/en, Zimmerfrei, Hfr-Lab, Progetto Antenna, Virgilio, Vinz Beschi, 47th Floor, Elec are some of the featured artists within a project that will eventually be released on DVD.

One last word to thank, after all those at Cimatics , all the people at Nemo Festival too , for the opportunity given to Italian artists and to Digicult as cultural operator, for having allowed space to “+ 39” , a self-promoted project which decides to move independently at an international level in a situation of absolute lack of institutional, political, public and private support, acknowledgement and funding. In a country which is culturally far behind, unable to give value to its own resources, amidst the objective difficulties of everyday professional life, among the choices of a whole generation, a digital and electronic cultural scene is born, in spite of everything. Let us pay the necessary tribute

Txt by Marco Mancuso

Live performances program:

Friday 11th of April

op 7 by otolab (IT)
Live AV performance
Line-up: Mud (audio), Tonylight (audio), xo00 (video), fd (video)
Duration: 50 minutes

Path to Abstraction by Quayola
Live A/V set
Line Up: Quayola (audio and video)
Duration: 40 minutes

Saturday 12th of April

Put down the gun by Mylicon/en
Live A/V set
Line up: Daniella Cattivelli (audio), Lino Greco (video)
Duration: 30 minutes

Video Screening program - Friday 11th of April:

Cityscan 4.05 (2005)
Artist: HFR-LAB
Duration: 4’ 30’’
Visual: Davide Quayola, Chiara Horn
Sound: Simone Strifele

Sodium Penthatol (2005)
Artist: ZimmerFrei
Duration: 5’
Quantize This (2005)
Artist: Ogino Knauss
Duration: 12’

Quantize This (2005)
Artist: Ogino Knauss
Duration: 12’

Oakland (2007)
Artist: Mylicon/en
Duration: 4’
Visual: Lino Greco
Sound: Daniela Cattivelli

Infonaturae 1.0 (2006)
Artists: Mattia Casalegno, Emanuele Errante
Duration: 6’
Visual: Mattia Casalegno (Kinotek)
Sound: Emanuele Errante

Forming (2005)
Artist: Progetto Antenna
Duration: 2’ 21’’

Animula (2007)
Artist: otolab
Duration: 8’

Waltz 57 (2005)
Artist: Niko stumpo
Duration: 2’ 30’’
Visual: Niko Stumpo
Sound: Swod

Am I Born? (2004)
Artist: Fabio Franchino
Duration: 4’ 25’’
Visual: Fabio Franchino
Sound: Amaury Groc
Custom software: Fabio Franchino
Credits: Rossella Schillaci (shots); Mara Loro (body)

UNreDELMONDO 2.0 (2003)
Artist: Elec
Duration: 3’
Visual: Tibor Fabian
Sound: Autobam
Credits: Marco De Paoli (metal sculpture); Enrico Sebellin (assistance stop motion shooting)

The Rain (2007)
Artists: Virgilio Villoresi, Ericailcane
Duration: 3’ 20’
Visual: Virgilio Villoresi, Ericailcane
Sound: Lou Rhodes

Spiritual healing (2005)
Artist: 47th Floor
Duration: 3’ 50’’
Concept and art direction: Davide Catraro, Marvin Milanese
Animation and Graphic: Davide Catraro, Marvin Milanese, Giovanni Remondini
Sound: ZU
Post Production: Giovanni Remondini

Fino (2006)
Artist: Blu
Duration: 2’ 30’’
Animation: Blu
Sound: Andrea Martignoni

Stip Melody (2005)
Artist: Vinz Beschi
Duration: 2’ 20’’
Credits: production, Elena Pasetti (PinAC, Rezzato);
production secretary, Maria Grazia Moranti;
with the collaboration of Salva Catini e Gloria Sinini

http://www.arcadi.fr/nemo