June 25 - July 3, 2021

 

REBIRTHING 

by  Massimiliano Cerioni

 

an audiovisual deep listening performance for instruments, live-electronics and generative visuals

 

Rebirthing is the latest work of the Italian sound artist Massimiliano Cerioni, a performance consisting in a generative visual projection shaped from a continuous sound loop.

Starting from the concept of "less is more" by the famous German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Cerioni bases the entire performance on the use of a single note played on a made of a didgeridoo – an ancient wind instrument used by Aboriginal populations of northern Australia, a Metastring - an electric monochord, and other electronic devices.

 

A planned improvisation based on multiple repetitions of the same note played every time in a different way will affect the geometry of the visuals, slowly turning it into a sort of circle that keeps memory of the past sonic events and keeps changing and evolving accordingly with every new sound. The symbol of the circle in the collective unconscious is used as an example of unity and integrity, a complete image without edges or sides, without any starting or ending point. In this case the artist could not choose any other form, as the technique used generates a constant circle of sounds which, like a continuous flow of energy starts from the instruments, is modified by the electronics, played again and then modified again and so on in an infinite loop.

 

The circle also refers to circular breathing - also called ‘rebirthing’, a technique used by the artist to produce an uninterrupted sound called “drone”, always the same and always different, most likely a mantra, which in Sanskrit also means “breath”. Listening to a drone for a certain amount of time can help us to increase our concentration and raise our attention threshold, so as to perceive sound nuances that we have previously ignored.

Massimiliano Cerioni guides us on a deep listening journey during which we will be invited to take our time to relax and just contemplate, to appreciate the exterminated informative content of a single note and eventually use this occurrence as a meditation moment to potentially grasp what the chaos of everyday life forbids us to perceive.

Text: Alice Ioffrida

 

Massimiliano Cerioni (Italy, 1986) is an audiovisual composer, sound-art performer, and a native of Pomezia (Rome), living and working in Berlin. He has graduated from the A. Casella Conservatory of L'Aquila (Italy) under the direction of Michelangelo Lupone. In 2015 he placed 1st at the Italian national art prize Premio Abbado. In June 2019 he is resident artist from the EMS – Elektron Musik Studion in Stockholm. In 2020 he also announced his software project Culto, focused on releasing devices for music creation. In 2021 his AV work Asleep? has been selected for the Psychedelic Film and Music Festival in New York City. In the meantime, he is resident artist from Scope BLN in Berlin where he premiered his video installation Inner landscape in April. Cerioni uses coding to synthesize and process sounds and visuals. Also, he plays the didgeridoo and custom-made instruments such as Metastring, an expanded electroacoustic monochord that 9rst appeared in September 2017 at Tempo Reale in Florence, Italy.