COMFORT ZONE - home CaOmera VIDeo performance per ① flautista solo e ⑨ live electronic devices
COMFORT ZONE - home CꜴmera VIDeo performance per ① flautista solo e ⑨ live electronic devices by Laura Faoro
idea, set up, musical score and stage writing
Laura Faoro
with a text from the poem “Nove marzo duemilaventi”
by Mariangela Gualtieri
flutist and performer
Laura Faoro
sound and video engineering, technical support
Carlo Centemeri
commissioned by Centro d'Arte di Padova
Chamber Music Festival 2020, online version due to COVID 19, released on April 10th
recorded and filmed in my living room in Milan, on March 21st - 22nd
editing and post-production at home on March 23rd - 25th
INSTRUMENTATION:
1 flute
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1 synthesizer
1 sound processor
3 video cameras
3 microphones
1 mixer
"Chiuso nel proprio salotto - divenuto cella di isolamento e sorvegliato da occhi video invadenti e secchi, unico contatto con l’esterno - un flauto si trasforma in un bastone magico, acustico ed elettrico e intona un rito scaramantico, che mescola musica contemporanea colta, free improvisation, live electronics e suoni campionati, il tutto interpolato con echi gregoriani e barocchi, memorie di antiche pestilenze. L’ottica è quella di un teatro povero 2.0, fatto con quel poco di attrezzeria e tecnologia low cost disponibile in casa, per raccontare in immagini sonore il mio spazio di sicurezza, il mio ecosistema domestico, durante questa pandemia, in bilico costante tra l’essere UN pericolo e l’essere IN pericolo”.
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COMFORT ZONE is a multimedia performance in short form inspired by the current dramatic circumstances, that see all of us severely imprisoned at home until late spring or beyond, due to the quarantine necessary to stem the contagion from COVID 19.
This work was born within these days of isolation, commissioned by Padua Art Center for its online music Festival 2020 and it talks about my own "safety space", my domestic "ecosystem" during this emergency.
A small world in the world, a space for practice that becomes a solitary refuge to be protected and purified in this particular moment, during which ”being A danger" is the other face of “being IN danger".
The fear of "danger", however, does not cease within the walls of my home, so - as a musician - I wonder isolating myself in a sound din that transforms my living room in a bubble, an aquarium that envelops me and limits my movements, in the metaphorical paradox of a captivity that "protects" me and my flute from the uncertainty of the present time.
From the musical point of view, water, indispensable for our hands - to be continuously washed and cleaned as to wash away the danger - resounds sampled throughout the whole piece, combined with a synthesizers sound carpet created by me.
Anxiety, fear, uncertainty and the perception of impalpable danger pour into jailed, restless movements under a very light and transparent cellophane, which has a single small opening torn outwards, a porthole to peer out of the "comfort zone ".
The flute, equipped with gloves and a mask, is transformed metaphorically into a ritual magic stick, with which the flutist recites formulas to ostracize fear.
The dreaded symptoms - recursive, rhythmic coughing - threaten the breath, suffocate the sound and generate spasms of broken clusters.
A Follia theme from Corelli variations is intertwined with the even older Dies irae, memory of medieval pestilences, in an electronic reinterpretation between contemporary classical music and free improvisation, that "contaminates" their musical physiognomy, with loops, contemporary techniques, timbre effects and processed sounds.
And "contamination" - in its double sense, both creative and nefarious - is at the origin of the chosen instrumentation: only one electrified flute, enhanced by technology of course, but still played through a breath that can become sick at any moment.
I wanted to give primary importance to video, as a vehicle of transmission and social sharing of the performance, so I chose to have three "eyes" that looked at this aquarium from outside and inside, as "surveillance" cameras, home security cameras, with a continuous passage between a shot of the scenic effect from outside and a shot of its technical rendering from inside the belly of the aquarium. These are home videos, of course, made with two cheap cameras and one Go Pro, due to the strict rules of quarantine.
The perspective is that of a "Poor" 2.0 Theater, made with the little equipment and low cost technology available at home. My living room has become a site specific stage with a few means (inspiration was from a previous work, "Three Sisters" by A. Chekhov (L. Pasetti, director, R. Quindici, music, 2018 theatrical residence with my ensemble The Merry Wives Trio).
"Comfort Zone" ends with a remnant of the beautiful poem written by Mariangela Gualtieri titled “Nove marzo duemilaventi", a strong message of hope for a better future, open to others and to the world.
www.laurafaoro.it
© 2020 Laura Faoro