i’m h
screening from 6.00 pm (reservation on eventbrite)
P. Pisani – I. Penov, I’M h, 2020, still video
The evening is dedicated to the screening of the latest video produced by the Trieste artist together with the Macedonian musician, and to a conversation with the authors.
Due to restrictions, two replicas/sessions are scheduled with booking required.
It is an immersive video focusing on obsessive perception and exploring the theme of urban noise pollution. Made in 2020, I’M h originates from careful consideration during the first wave of the pandemic, when the slowdown in human activities unexpectedly brought out the “silence” and thus emphasized the “noises” of the city.
The letter h is the symbol of the quantum, the constant with which Max Planck indicated the minimum action of energy.
Provocatively, Pisani takes inspiration from Planck to open a discussion on the subject of noise pollution: she identifies this constant h of energy in the background noise to which we are continuously exposed (which may also cause sensory damage and psychophysical discomfort, alterations in the biorhythm and so on). The artist tells us that her work aims to induce in the spectators a “silence” that is a state of mind, resistance and resilience: «it is an invitation to an inner journey, a sort of contemporary meditation. It follows a precise visual and sound score that makes it a perfect post-industrial harmony between heaven and earth, male and female, yin and yang. The reference to the mandala, the rosette, the circle, the circadian rhythms takes time out of time, to a point of rediscovered beginning, continuously changing and personal. Each of us is h».
The thirty-minute video offers only two types of images – sky and flowers (enlarged under a microscope) that follow one another incessantly – while the audio track “abstracts” into an extremely dense, almost deafening sound mass an urban landscape saturated by too many sound sources (extrapolating data from a map of environmental recordings and processing them with algorithms, in the sound processing phase, as very low and low sounds).
In the overall audio-visual work, the visual component interacts closely, in a contrasting and deep, visceral way, with a not simple sound part, inspired by the new age. The crescendo of editing, after overcoming the first physically very strong sensory barrier, opens a breach in the world of perception.
Paola Pisani is a multimedia artist who works in the field of plastic, visual and performing arts both in Italy and abroad. She is interested in the combination of nature and culture, in the processes of inclusion and participation and in artistic research in the scientific field. A versatile artist, she expresses herself mainly in immersive installations and theatrical performances focusing on ecology, memory and the feminine. In Trieste she is an active member of Gruppo78 International Contemporary art and a yoga teacher.
Ivan Penov is a musician and multimedia artist who focuses on the dialogue between sound and image, in particular on their interchangeable forms and functions (between sound, as a figurative and narrative element, and moving image, as a musical and rhythmic entity based on time). He uses audio-visual materials based on multimedia field recordings (enhancing actions, situations and processes that he usually finds in rural and everyday environments). His projects address post-global and post-rural issues and often involve composers, choreographers, musicians and visual artists.