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sosta#3 - READING ENVIRONMENT a reading environment is a poetry reading where voice and text are put in relation to space through spoken voice digital processing and multi-channel spatialization. This reading environment has been realized with live and playback voice processing devices at Denkmalschmiede Höfgen, Grimma, Leipzig, 10.09.2006 (see below for a detailed description). Credits: Location: Interdisciplinary Centre for Art and Media Technology Denkmalschmiede Höfgen (www.hoefgen.de) Kurt-Uwe Andrich: multimedia aids, coordination, set-up Kristina Bahr: production aids Alessandro De Francesco: project, texts, voice, voice design, morphing, treatments, installation. Languages: Italian and German (translations by Alessandro De Francesco, Claudia Gabler and Angela Sanmann). Production: Alessandro De Francesco and Denkmalschmiede Höfgen.
DESCRIPTION sosta#3 (stop#3) is a reading environment realized on the 10th of september 2006 at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Art and Media Technology Denkmalschmiede Höfgen, Grimma (Leipzig, Germany). Denkmalschmiede Höfgen is a monumental farm of 17th century. It has been restored as a contemporary art centre since the 70s. sosta#3 has been realized in one of the most ancient spaces of the building, once used as a kitchen. The room’s character is given by a low ceiling, small windows and a sober architecture. The guests were invited to enter the room, where a vintage phone lay on a wooden round table. Next to the table there were a DDR-style armchair and a lamp. All these objects were illuminated through yellow and blue spots, that were disposed like on a theatre stage. When the guest entered the room, he could hear a monotone pad sound mixed so that the low frequences were very strong at the entrance and became weaker in approaching the phone. The sound has been created through sound stretching and morphing of digital reverb of spoken voice in a Lo spostamento degli oggetti poem. In approaching the phone and the table, the guest discovered a paper sheet were he could read the following text:
Please read the instructions carefully: In poetry, words are objects. The language of objects is poetry in space. I am in another room. I can see you. Please stop here for a while. Answer my call and let me read you a poem. If you ask me something, I can answer only through poems. But I might say nothing and I can hang up whenever I want. You can hang up whenever you want, but you can’t call me. You don’t know me. Does it make sense if I ask: Is there something or somebody out there? Are the objects unconscious? The dream is a language. Bitte lesen Sie die Anweisungen genau: In der Lyrik sind Wörter Objekte. Die Sprache von Objekten ist Lyrik im Raum. Ich bin in einem anderen Raum. Ich kann Dich sehen. Bitte bleibe hier ein bißchen stehen. Nimm den Hörer ab, wenn ich anrufe, und laß mich Dir ein Gedicht vorlesen. Wenn Du mich etwas fragst, kann ich nur mit Gedichten antworten. Aber vielleicht werde ich auch nichts sagen und ich kann auflegen, wann immer ich will. Du kannst auch jederzeit auflegen, aber Du kannst mich nicht anrufen. Du kennst mich nicht. Macht es Sinn zu fragen: Ist da draußen etwas oder jemand? Sind die Objekte unbewußt? Träume sind Sprache.
While the guest was reading, or after he had read, the phone rang. If the guest chose to answer the call (almost everybody did it), he/she heard my voice reading in Italian one or more poems of the cycle sosta nel sottopasso in dormiveglia and the female voices of two german poet-translators reading the same poem(s) in german translations. Everything was made in real time: through a webcam we could watch guests’ movements without being visible (we were hidden in another room) and decide when to call and when to hang up. The phone connection had been concretely realised. The phone was conceived itself as a sound filter, so that the real-time reading voice was not treated, but only superposed to the background pad. A sort of “re-semantisation” of daily life objects inside the installation as well as inside the poem was one of the main tasks of the work, even if this was made in an indirect and not illustrative way. This aspect was enhanced by a problematisation of poetry transmission through media, sound and space. TECHNICAL DETAILSmaterial hardware software
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