Magic Carpets: Study visit of Nicola di Croce to Innsbruck
February – 29.February 2020 Just before COVID heats up, the borders close and a few weeks before the complete quarantine, we hosted a Magic Carpets study visit of a Italian artist and architect Nicola di Croce suggested by our Partnerorganisation from Rome – Latitudo Art Projects. Nicola is invited into the project because of his expertise in sound art and research witch deals with the relationship between Urban Studies and Sound Studies.
During his stay in Innsbruck, Nicola dedicated his time to connect with the city, its citizens, and variety of perspectives through walks and talks with organizers, different artist and cultural workers – especially with curator team Peter Lorenz and Danijela Oberhofer Tonkovic.
Nicolas residency, which will be taking place in April and May this year, is oriented towards participatory approach and collaborative methodologies emerging within Sound Studies and Sound Art practice. Nicola Di Croce’s residency will take shape through a collaboration with the collective “The Doing Group”. More specifically the artist will be involved in the creation and development of two of the 9 chapters that the group has conceived to engage with Innsbruck’s citizens and public spaces during Magic Carpet’s festival. Moreover, he will work on a site specific performance to be presented at Heart of Noise Festival.
Nicola will start his residency by exploring the city’s urban atmosphere and sonic environment, therefore collecting a number of field recordings that will become the basis of my research. Through this first investigation he seeks to detect a number of special sonic characters spread around the different neighborhoods, and he aims to identify those vulnerable areas where to focus his attention during the following steps of the residency.
First, the field recordings and sonic investigation will inform the whisper arch’s chapter. This interactive sound installation will link together a well-known inner city’s touristic area with a suburban neighborhood (ore more) by means of a real-time sonic interconnection system able to record and diffuse voices and urban atmospheres.
Second, the field recordings and the sonic approach used throughout the residency will be putted in dialogue with the audiovisual and choreographic performance based on Immersive Ton(I) ( Vorbrenner)
installation. The main outputs of this intervention will be broadcasted within the radio’s chapter, which will also include interviews and pre-recorded sounds based on the collaboration between The Doing Group, Nicola Di Croce, and other involved artists.
Ultimately, a multichannel sound performance will be realized in collaboration with Grassmayr Bell Foundry. The performance is part of Heart of Noise’s bill, and will use a number of Grassmayr’s bells to create a unique texture of sonic atmosphere and resonation based on the field recordings selected during the research.
