Stream is any body of flowing fluid but also a continuous moving procession and line of development. A festive fluid – properly enviromental – which influenced the curatorial process of the first Stream Festival, in creating a three night and days artists residency on local and international levels. (check also Luca’s Streamfest point of review)
Ecopolis among other digital environmental experiences was invited to participate and reflect onto the topics : Emotions, Discovery, Play. So I have been driving from Rome to Galatina, via Taranto, Gallipoli, Martano streaming to the fest.
I have appreciated very much the occasion to meet a network of media activists dedicated at different levels to environmental “connection” : (not only) my Ecopolis partners Luca Barbeni and Antonio Rollo, (also) Paolo Atzori and the interesting 3d3 NABA students, Alessandra Pomarico of Sound Res, Jaromil, performing Carlo Infante, Gianluca Del Gobbo, Giulia Mainenti and great Cecile Landman of streamtime.org. A Fest which has produced a series of conversion of tacit knowledge and has explicited the difficulties related to the understanding of digital environments and social tagging. A paradigmatic meeting which ended up in the peace of nature. I think we all agreed that technology is not simply an extention of our body. More is a matter of (ever changing) environment. Consequently a multimedia and multisensorial experience.
My installation pick for this first edition is the Ingenium Loci an Interaction System by Giada Totaro, Giorgio Rinolfi, Alessandra Cascione with the sounding by Gilvia, a talented italian young composer.
While the live performance picks are the quite sophisticate Sombrero Party showcase featuring the Cologne duo playing a bubbling brew of mutant jazz, souls, electronics and funk with a baroque bassline;
and the finnish LackLuster, who managed to play – within the torrid heat – some fresh, icy and twitching textures.
Worth to mention the “historical” Sinatti Carillon Chandelier Sessions, a mixedmedia performance consisting of a specially constructed video chandelier and a real time image renderer, along with the presence of an electronic live set.
Kinotek Sound of Complexity, an attempt to make audible and visible the complexity of unheard and invisible waves: The crude sound of brain is translated in an audible frequencies through techniques of pitch shifting; then processed digitally in real time and the corresponding frequencies transformed in a Cartesian space to form visual trajectories projected on four screens that react dynamically.
Last but not leat: Jaromil hasciicam who makes possible to take live video from a capture device (like tv cards or quickcams) and renders it into ascii, formatting the output into an html page.
Valeria Guarcini aka Nikky deliriouniversale was the most fun and very interesting vjset which explored the possibility of infinitive framing and time topology through the use of diapositives. As much as the 2 days flowing PhotoStream of Matteo Barbeni and Alberto Ribotta.
Next day I continued my south pilgrimage to Copertino.
The Franciscan church of Saint Giuseppe is considered to be a Sanctuary. It dates back to 1754. Inside there is the “Stalletta”, a small room where the Saint was born, and a small museum. He became famous for his ecstasies, miracles, and for the gift of levitation, reported by numerous eye-witnesses. He experienced this so often he became known as “the flying Friar.”
Then I moved to Lecce. I was guested at Supersquillo’s home near the curved archway of Lecce’s “Porta Napoli” one of the city’s main thoroughfares that meander through the “Centro Storico”.
Porta Napoli – Also know as Arch of Triumph,was erected in 1548 to pay homepage to Charles V for having fortified the town. Near by you can find the famous Teatro Paisiello, Lecce’s most renowned opera house and named in honor of Giovanni Paisiello. Built in the late 1600’s and originally named the “Teatro Nuovo”, reopened in 1993 is also called by the locals “teatro muto” (mute) because of the last renewal which ruined the acoustic. I also heard of a protest against the elimination of many historical pine trees which badly failed as you can see walking by the viale dell’università. No pine trees are left.
On the contrary “pink park spaces” are politically and correctly placed in the heart of the leccese Baroque of public square S. Oronzo
South park is infact controversial. Big Romanesque central rose windows, the rich frames, the columns, the imaginay creatures, the animals, the mythological and historical characters, the rural landscape, the natural food makes the Salento a perfect site for streaming into an ecstatic time. Felicità maniaca Carmelo Bene would say and play it, wouldn’t he?
Felicità
Felicità maniaca che ne faremo io della mia anima e
lei della gioventù sua cagionevole
lei, che tutto il mio cuore e la mia vita dove sarà a quest’ora …
But there is the emergency to create more Cultural and Environmental international occasion for the local population and more attention from the provincial administration. On preserving and updating these cultural treasures ensures their contribution to tourism and regional economic development is sustained over the long term, so that future generations may also benefit from them. We need old and new Fairs. Updated structure. Renewed festival. An essential pluriliguism, made of cultural vagabondage and more attention to electronic women. Streamfest was a good, yet critical, begin. And we are looking forward to check it next year – In the mean time the stream goes on.
