The longest day. Five hours of nonstop volcanic activity. The bamboo mobile structures by Tobias Putrih were harmoniously arranged once again, while their orchestration was acoustically supported by the soundtrack of Beasts of Gravity / Living Metals composed by Joana Escoval with Nuno da Luz and the anthem Senza Fine by Liliana Moro.
Accompanied at the alchemy crystal singing bowls by the Trust’s Founder Nicoletta Fiorucci, Patrizio Di Massimo presented a guided meditation titled I am not the body, I am not even the mind which peacefully sank us all in a contemplative state of being…
To shake up our energies and come back from our quasi-somnambulist moment, Cecilia Bengolea offered one of her signature collective dance classes, to which everyone enthusiastically took part!
By then fully warmed up, soon came the moment for some more poetry, as Alex Cecchetti introduced the echo-chamber with his Cetaceans poems, always magisterially distorted by Alec Curtis, our silent yet active spirit of the control room…
After being transported amidst sea waves by these triumphant marine compositions, it was the turn of celebrating the art of wanderlust, and the perfect balance only living contrasts can achieve: unfolding in sequence, we assisted to the projection of Abstracting Attraction, a performance presented by Mathilde Rosier on top of the Stromboli volcano in 2014; another reiteration of Chiara Fumai‘s impersonation of The Thunder, Perfect Mind; and the manipulated speech on the stra-vagare, by the Trust’s Curator Milovan Farronato. Eventually, the notes of Vesuvius irrupted as a hymn.
A brief change of scenery, and the imagery and noise of the depths of the abyss by George Henry Longly filled our special screens, silks and backdrops, while Stella Bottai, a long-time aficionado of the Trust’s extravaganzas, engaged in an underwater speech, while Assistant Curator Marina La Verghetta threw a ray of light upon her.
At the sound of Harry Styles’s popular song Sign of the Times, Patrizio di Massimo reappeared on stage, ready to perform Playback. Swinging from the abyss of the oceans to the notes of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, we veered to the conclusion of the day with the nostalgic Judy Garland: A Biography by Christodoulos Panayiotou.
Celebrated by the recurrent motif of rain, fire and applause by Katharina Fritsch, and reaffirmed by yet one more visual and soundscape intervention by Haroon Mirza, we called the curtain on the fourth day of Total Anastrophes.
And temporarily away we went, from our cradle of collective memories…
Photographs by Noor Photoface
