DIGICULT Digital Art, Design & Culture Founder & Editor-in-chief: Marco Mancuso Advisory Board: Marco Mancuso, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Claudia D'Alonzo Publisher: Associazione Culturale Digicult Largo Murani 4, 20133 Milan (Italy) http://www.digicult.it Editorial Press registered at Milan Court, number N°240 of 10/04/06. ISSN Code: 2037-2256 Licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - Creative Commons 2.5 Italy (CC BY- NC-ND 2.5) Printed and distributed by Lulu.com E-publishing development: Loretta Borrelli Cover design: Eva Scaini Digicult is part of the The Leonardo Organizational Member Program TABLE OF CONTENTS Marco Mancuso Exploding Cave ............................................................................................................. 3 Marco Mancuso Alain Thibault: Elektra From Past To The Future .................................................... 9 Motor Material Hybridization ................................................................................................ 15 Marco Riciputi The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button .................................................................... 21 Matteo Milani Valerio Adami And The Pictorial Sound ................................................................. 24 Marco Mancuso Esther Manas and Arash Moori: Sound and Sculpture ........................................ 29 Clemente Pestelli Giacomo Verde: Action Beyond Representation ................................................. 36 Silvia Casini Marc Didou: Resonances ........................................................................................... 41 Stefano Raimondi Chris Woebken: La Gioia In Divenire ....................................................................... 47 Donata Marletta Cybercultures 4: A Journey In Virtual Space ......................................................... 53 Tatiana Bazzichelli Vittore Baroni: From Mail Art To Web 2.0 .............................................................. 57 Gigi Ghezzi Darwin From The Microscope ................................................................................. 68 Massimo Schiavoni Pathosformel fever .................................................................................................... 73 Otherehto Psybody Design ......................................................................................................... 80 Alessio Galbiati Antonio Martino, The Reflexive Stalker ................................................................. 88 Giulia Baldi In Video Collaboration ............................................................................................. 100 Exploding Cave Marco Mancuso oscurità e nel caos dell’Exploding Plastic Inevitable, si poteva trovare una possibilità di trasformazione, se non di liberazione”. – [Branden W. Joseph, My Mind Split Open] The Milan we know has been planned, starting from the 1950′s, in a way similar to that of the organization of work, the districts are separated by classes, the distances are calculated Trafficando con le forze tecnologiche between workplaces and houses. You emergenti, tra il 1966 e il 1967 Andy plan a specific family. You plan a Warhol crea l’Exploding Plastic certain type of house (…). The general Inevitable, formando uno spazio feeling was that of a crystallized contradditorio e sperimentale. Invece future, dominated by events mainly di una loro naturalizzazione, incomprehensible and not to be produceva un montaggio che participated to (…). In the scomponeva lo spazio nel quale ‘existentialist cave’ of 1950′s Milan, the diversi media interferivano ed traditional codes of the “Milanese” entravano in competizione gli uni con ballroom were replaced by the gli altri (…). Improvvisamente, il ritmo experimentation of new musical della musica suonata dai Velvet genres and new exchange methods Underground e dall’attrice/cantante between sounds and visions that in Nico, i giochi di luce, i movimenti dei turn involved specific dynamics. The diversi film di Warhol, le performance relationship of seduction was evident dei ballerini si univano per creare in the liberation of the body moved by qualcosa di significativo, ma prima di musical rhythms, not anymore by the cogliere il senso di quello che stava ‘classical dance forms’ of the dance avvenendo, tutto diventava hall. People’s looks are freed of the nuovamente confuso e caotico. Il bourgeois aesthetics of the ‘jacket rumore ti colpiva. Volevi urlare, o and tie’ . – [John Martin, Primo lanciarti in una danza sfrenata, dovevi Moroni, La Luna sotto casa ] muoverti, agire ( ). Nell’apparente 3 Exploding Cave revises and desecrates a complex machinery, bringing to rapid combustion the images and sounds of the cinema- cathedral of Hollywood, of television and of the social (anti)media; it is a . sudden storm for the expansion of With a double reference both to the stories, hallucinations and “existentialist caves” of 1950′s Milan extraordinary dreams, but it is also a and the experimentation of Andy concrete demonstration of Warhol’s “Exploding Plastic experiences, knowledge and criticism Inevitable”, “Exploding Cave” is a 2- of the present; it opens a tear on the days event that will be held in Milan harmonic visions and on today’s most on April 17 and 18, in the spaces of deafening noises. Cox18, structured in a series of meetings, workshops and performances that investigate the relationship and the least common denominator that ties cinema, sound, video and digital arts. Organized by the same Cox18 with the collaboration of Digicult, Exploding Cave suggests the idea of an explosion, of an effort to “go beyond” the normal audiovisual perception . towards multiple directions, both in In a city that builds and models the the practices of audiovisual creation social spaces through mechanisms of and in the performative methods. It exclusion and consumption, in investigates the phenomenon of the contrast to the municipal politics of “optical unconscious”, the concept of repression and evacuation of matrix, the analysis of both autonomous spaces and self- production and fruition forms that managed realities in Milan and in Italy, work to the rediscovery of a primary Exploding Cave wants to reconstruct root of the audiovisual language, a paths and moments of synthesis common core at the base of the between experimentation of new contemporary dialogue among social and creative forms, and cinema, video and digital arts. involvement of other independent 4 cultural realities in town, like JointSventure . (http://www.myspace.com/jointsven On Friday April 17, there will be the ture), Vocecov opening of Exploding Cave , devoted (http://www.myspace.com/vocecov) to the relationship between sound e Dorkbot Milano and images, expressed through (http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotmil/). dynamics of research and A space therefore built to overcome experimentation especially in a the typical spectacular construction of performative context. An evening full an event (creator and spectator, of digital aesthetics, between noise speaker and listener), with the sounds, glitch, electro, 8bit and purpose of creating a more open generative visualizations of graphic circle, less centered on the codes in movement. The first live set performance but based rather on the will see the duo Komplex (Mariano sharing of knowledge and Equizzi and Paolo Bigazzi) that will experiences. In concrete terms, a introduce their live audiovisual set moment to give the floor to the artists “Blood Electric”, where the reading of / artisans and the machines / the homonym cyber-text, through a software they use for their audiovisual clock fixed in bpm, produces a production practice. constant flow of data that are destined to the controlling of visual The formula thought for Exploding effects and sound generation: the Cave is that of “a moment of free sequence that is so produced is search”, that allows the public – controlled through the I use of through a dynamic and articulated wireless sensors, and fed by a series course – and the featured artists to of pre-registered images. start a dialogue that helps better understand the dynamics that unite Later the audiovisual improvisation cinema, sound and video to the live set consisting of one of the most universe of digital creation. important names of the international idm/electro/punk Otto von Schirach (Schematic), and of one of the members of the Milanese collective otolab, Orgone. A live set which is expected full of energy and improvised elements, pushed towards the search of a total audiovisual and sensory involvement of the audience, 5 something in between hardcore to create sounds and images, videos, electronics and generative graphics. lights. For this event, LEP introduces Lastly, the 8bit music of one of the its last projects: “Leploop”, a small most interesting names of this ever analog synth to produce music rich musical scene, the Swiss Stu, that (http://tonylight- for the occasion will cross Game Boy leploop.blogspot.com) and and Atari with Milanese Tonylight, “Videomoog”, a video synth to who has been promoting this genre produce images of synthesis able to on a national basis for years. follow music. During the presentation, various prototypes will be observable, and it will be possible to listen to, and try, the tools, apart from exchanging ideas on the projects. The late afternoon will be dedicated to the presentation of the Videoscreening cared for by Claudia Di Alonzo and Marco Lorenzin: an endless cycle projection of films, videos and short films, will then be .