Quiet ensemble_selected works
Quiet ensemble | Bio
The research of Quiet ensemble goes through the observation of the ballance between chaos and control, nature and technology, creating subjects
that perfectly merges the those elements, elements that take form from the relation of organic and ar- tificial subjects, moving the attention to insignificant and wonderful elements,
like the movement of a fly or the sound of trees. The interest is connected to those technologies that explores the aesthetic and conceptual possibilities deriving from interactivity techniques, aproaching the newest technological discoveries as if they would be the tools for creation, like the brush
for the painter.
Working on the relation between time and space, sound and image the work of Quiet ensemble changes and develops in time, relating to the space,
changing it.
Emphasizing the unespected events, refuting the apparent immobility of shapes and melting the appearing opposition of forces in nature.
Concrete and abstract shapes are sectioned and remodeled in hybrid forms and balances, parallel giving great importance to the pure aesthetics of
forms.
Quiet ensemble is born in 2009 from the meeting between Fabio Di Salvo | Bernardo Vercelli.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
A concert where the classical orchestra and instruments are replaced by an electric set up. Instead of violins are neon lights, to replace drums are strobe lights
and instead of clarinets we will see theatrical headlights illuminating the audience. Through copper coils and a particular process it will be possible to extrapolate
the sound of electric current going from the circuits to the lamps so giving “voice” to the electric musical instruments.
The sound of every single light will be modified in real time and summed up with all the other instruments (lighting systems) making audible the “hidden concert”
of pure light. Each lamp has its own sound, formed by the amplification of its “buzzing”, the murmur and disturbance that is usually eliminated during concerts
and performances, generated by electrical energy that powers each lighthouse.
The frequencies and heat emitted by the lights are perceived under the skin and vary according to the size and type of each lamp. The Enlightenment is a summary presentation of the sound material hidden inside every light that makes up the set. Every light in the concert externalizes its frequency sound, stripped of our
eyes of his sound and gives it to us.
Presented at:
roBOt Festival 2014 - Bologna IT
SOLIN VARIO • IL SOLE PROTETTO
“Solin vario” is an original installation presented for the first time as part of Digital Life 2013.
A series of lights suspended in the air. The feint light awakens the instinct of small, flying animals hidden at first in the dark and which, as soon as the perceive the
point of light, start to fly and move towards the source of heat and light. The dance of the small insects around their “glass enclosed sun” is interrupted in the moment when contact is made with the light bulb.
An amplification system makes the sound of the delicate “concert” caused by the casual movements of the animals flying around audible to the bare ear.
Presented at:
Digitalife 2013, MACRO Testaccio-Rome
QUINTETTO
“Quintetto” is an installation based on the study of casual movement of objects or living creatures used as input for the production of sounds.
The basic concept is to reveal what we call “invisible concerts” of everyday life.
Quintetto is an installation based on the study of casual movement of objects or living creatures used as input for the production of sounds. The basic concept
is to reveal what we call “invisible concerts” of everyday life. The vertical movements of the 5 fishes in the aquarius is captured by a videocamera, that translates
(through a computer software) their movements in digital sound signals.
We’ll have 5 different musical instruments creating a totally unexpected live concert.
Presented at:
First Prize at Premio Celeste, Catania-IT
Third Prize at Celeste Prize, Berlin-DE
DMY International Design Festival, Berlin-DE
DOS Disegnare Oggetti Sonori, Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Rome-IT
AAM Arte Accessibile, Sole 24 ore, Milano-IT
Eco Art Project, for Acea and Earth Day, Auditorium Della Conciliazione, Rome-IT
Drodesera-Centrale Fies, Drò-IT
Short Theatre, MACRO museum, Rome-IT
Signal Festival, Cagliari-IT
Interstice Festival, Caen-FR
Biennale Panoramas, Bordeaux-FR
ORCHESTRA DA CAMERA
Orchestra Da Camera is a musical installation in wich the 40 elements of the chamber are mais running on their wheels.
Each wheel its connected to a carillon and when it turns the carillon starts playing its musical note.
The great number of carillons and the random actions of the living creatures makes unrecognizable the melodies (lullabies by Brahms, Schubert and Mozart )
creating an unexpected musical carpet determined by the mice.
Presented at:
Art You Lost? Teatro India - Rome IT
ORIENTA: è qui ora, che decido di fermarmi
Technology and nature. Randomness and control. The revelation of what is insignificant as a poetic and marvelous moment. A reflection upon the life tracks,
invisible paths that tell the story of a living being’s passage on earth.
25 snails are put in the centre of a white plate, positioned into a dark room. From the moment they start sliding on the white surface they generate a line of light
showing the memory of their passage. At the end of the day we’ll have a light drawing, created by the movement of the little creatures during the day.
Added to the visual aspect of the work there is a surround sound carpet generated by the movement of the snails.
The actual sound of the animals has been recorded and digitalized.
The sound system it is made in a way that the living creatures brings around with them their sounds, each snail has related a specific sound so,
if all of them would be on the right corner we woud hear sound coming only from the right corner and so on.
Orienta is a living installation, always changing and different every time.
Presented at:
Digitalife 2012, Rome
DER TEUFEL LEISE, FAUST • IL DIAVOLO SOTTOVOCE
Der teufel leise, Faust (the devil whispering) is a performance sound composition without musicians either perfprmers, only the empty hall of the theater. The
sounds, which are used as raw material for composition and live performance, are the equipment available in the specific space of the theater, lighting, smoke
machine, microphones generate noise, created by the mechanics of the stage, such as elevators, fluorescent tubes or air conditioning , so objects that determine
the space itself.
In this version of the Faust , the theatre with its equipment, is both the source and the product, a virtual instrument that determines the performance itself. The action is orchestrated by the equipment of the space and the sound is determined by the technical functions of the same, simultaneously at the time of creation of
the work. All sounds are combined in a electromechanical composition, built on the basis of the classical play by Goethe, The Faust so the development drama
has its origins and developments based on the specific play.
The presence of the hallucinogenic devil comes in the guise of sound, incarnate in every surrounding object, objects can raise their voice and whisper their presence, shouting in a empty space, creating a auditory mechanical crescendo, accommodating the public in a universe inhabited by presences usually inanimate
we suggest the work through its revelation and their voices.
Presented at:
Festival Drodesera 2013 - Drò, Trento IT
CRT, Triennale Di Milano, Teatro dell’Arte, Milano IT
NATURA MORTA
“Natura Morta” is a musical concert where the only instruments used are real fruits and the sound we’ll hear is exclusively the electric energy contained within
them.
The elettric power of the humans getting mixed with the energy of the fruits makes the sound audible, is the fisical contact between human and nature that generate the music.
Each fruit has acid in it that produces electrical tension, using a special technique we can boost these frequencies making the inaudible audible,
the sound of the vital energy of nature.
The individual fruits are raised on wooden platforms, standing on a transparent plexiglass plate lit from under. Each time a fruit plays its base will lit up, staining
the surrounding space, making it changeable and dinamic. Each platform is a home made midi controller which allow us to modulate the sound wave’s, creating
more complex rhythms and sounds.
The sound frequencies are emphasized by a large videoprojection representing a macro vision of the fruits.
Slowly the concrete images becomes abstract, the Natura morta (Still life) picture changes reacting precisely to the sound vawes,
crashing and dissolving into pure shapes of colors and lights.
Presented at:
Auditorium parco della musica - Teatro studio - Rome IT
Affordable Art Fair/Romaeuropa presentation-at MACRO museum, Rome-IT
Node Festival, Modena-IT
Flussi Festival, Avellino-IT
Dancity Festival, Foligno-IT
DOS Disegnare Oggetti Sonori, Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Rome-IT
Selected for the Festival Della Creatività, at FACTORY space at Ex Mattatoio Testaccio, Rome-IT
ALLEGORIA
The Allegoria (allegory) is an image, a text in which the meaning immediately readable obscures another more important and profound, which is the true value of the
image or the text itself. Just as music is the art and science of sound over time, in the performance Allegoria the man’s body becomes the sound object generating
music.
Allegoria is presented as a classical music concert performed by a string quartet that plays a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The concert begins.
In the midst of the representation interference are revealed, unexpected sounds and noises which initially we are unable to distinguish the source. Slowly these alternative sounds are mixed with the classical music and the audience gradually begins to sense their nature origin. Revealing gradually are the inaudible sounds that
the body of the musicians inevitably generates during the concert, those sounds generally regarded as noise.
We’ll have diverse sound strata, a first one generated by the superficial contact between the bodyes and objects,
as the creaking of the chair that supports the performers, the cellist arm rubbing while playing, the sound generated by turning pages of the scores.
The second strata goes deeper into the body, inside it.
So we’ll have the sound of breathing, the heartbeats and through a special technique we will hear the inaudible sounds generated by the electric energy passing
through their bodyes while playing the musical piece.
Amalgamating with the sounds of strings, the musical composition evolves to the complete revelation of music of the bodies.
So we’ll have complex sound strata, where different layers of the audible subjects are revealed,
the aim is to stimulate our slightly dormant awareness, awakening the consciousness of the world that are usually ignored, giving voice to the teeming of life hidden
behind the apparent immobility of forms.
In Allegoria as in everyday life, man can grasp the essence of things only predisposing to attention and curiosity,
while fleeing from the immediate interpretations of reality that surrounds him.
Presented at:
Re-New Digital Arts Festival, Copenhagen-DK
Nuit Blanche, Bruxelles-BE
Quit festival, Cagliari-IT
Teatro Valle, Rome-IT
SOUNDPRINT #1
SOUNDPRINT© #1 is an audio-visual performance.
Alex Braga and QuietEnsemble are sitting inside the car to “play” it.
Kyungme Lee, the Cello superstar from the orchestra of the genius Ennio Morricone, is sitting in front of the car. The Fiat 500 has over 20 microphones and produces its typical noises that the artists, with their computers and instruments, transform into sounds, tuned into a spectacular and absolutely original duet between
the Cello and the car.
A complex and rhythmical video mapping of the musician and the car will allow the artists to enhance the performance with lights and videoprojections, making it
even more astonishing.
Performers / Alex Braga - Quiet ensemble - Kyungme Lee
Presented at:
Toyota Yaris presentation, Florence-IT
SUL RUMORE, ASCOLTA
Inside the darkened room the audience is invited to enter, wait and listen.
Guests begin to approach the figures arranged in space, the shadow will begin to reveal the first appearances, in the background stands a human figure,
in the same instant in which the body is revealed to the public can be heard its hidden sounds, inaudible using only the ear, reavealing his apparent immobility.
We will be spectators of an emotional increase, visual and musical, where we’ll discover sound universes we were probably unaware about.
So is the audience through its attention to things, that will activate and give “voice” to things, interacting with the elements and with the other individuals in the
space, stimulating the consciousness and awareness in relation to what surrounds him ..
Re-evaluation of hidden sounds in the world, present in nature and in human beings. Raising the volume of each creature / creation, in the installation is amplified the sound of the human body, from heartbeat to breathing, the sound of his stomach, based on a random drama we’ll have revealed the hidden and ignored
sounds of daily life: the undetectable sound of the electricity flowing and the bulb lights up the noise of the block of ice that melts and drips onto the floor, the hamster that runs on the metal wheel or the sounds from crickets to the piece of wood inhabited by woodworm .
The intent is to create a dense and complex sound body, which mixes, amplifief and reveals the different layers of life, now heard by the users. This awakens the
awareness in humans, stimulating feeling through the musicality often hidden in an apparent stasis. The user assumes a participatory role, approaching to the creatures, reveals the soul and the existence of the elements.
Only by giving attention on things, we may finally see and hear things.
Presented at:
Festival Della Creatività,Florence-IT
JOHN CAGE’S
John Cage’s is a concert orchestrated by 12-birds in cages.
The sound compositions are determined solely by the contact that the birds have with the metal cages that encloses them,
creating dense and complex sound carpet and rhythmics revealing the horror of the cage it self and the musicality hidden inside.
We see six white cages placed a few inches from each other each containing two little birds. From each cage goes down the floor an intricate net of black cables
used to illuminate and reveal the sounds, creating a strong tension, as for the hear that for the eye.
Curator / Chiara Lorenzetti
Presented at:
Cifrari Umani, at B>Gallery, Rome-IT
THE SOUND OF BEAUTY @ Salvatore Ferragamo Madrid - Paris
Beauty is a subjective, abstract concept, a delicate alchemy built with grace and care for every detail.
The Sound Of Beauty © goes against the univocal standard of beauty, made of stereotypes and models that society imposes .
The beauty of Beauty is being relative, undefinable, in a continuous change, so close to caos,
so ephemeral but so powerful to stun us with a vision or with the pleasure to discover a small detail.
Beauty is a sensation, not an icon.
The Sound Of Beauty is about this.
You see a model, the classic icon of what MUST be beautiful. Her gestures. Her make up, clothes and accessories.
A series of microphones and cameras turn each one of her movement in a sound, in a visual input, a generative caos that we mold in real time
to create a simphony of the “sensation of Beauty”.
The performance is always different, always unique, because it is always related to our perception of that very moment.
Just like original beauty.
Quiet ensemble / Alex Braga
Presented at:
Vogue Fassion Night Out, for Salvatore Ferragamo, Madrid
Vogue Fassion Night Out, for Salvatore Ferragamo, Paris
BIOGRAFIE
The work is called Biografie, Bio-Graphy because it graphically (-grafie) represents life (Bio-) of small living creatures.
On each sheet I have followed for a specific time (50 minutes each) different kind of insects; the ant, the spider, the silkworm the cockroach and a
few more... Each of them have a totally different attitude and reaction.
They are followed for 50 minutes each with a pencil, marking on paper the black life trace, of every creature.
Presented at:
Bellevue Bridge, Zurich-CH
Quiet ensemble / contact :
Quiet ensemble
web | www.quietensemble.com
mail | [email protected]
International distribution: Claudio Ponzana
mail | [email protected]
tel | +39 3397287887
Curator: Federica Patti; roBOt Festival 2014
mail | [email protected]
quietensemble.com