Saturday 11 May, for the centre's birthday, unveiling of the work created by composer Riccardo La Foresta and Texan media artist Lisa B Woods in the 'City to City' project
It is entitled 'Drawdown', the environmentally themed media art installation created by Modenese composer Riccardo La Foresta and Texan media artist Lisa B Woods and presented to the public for the first time on Saturday 11 May on the occasion of the 30th anniversary celebration of the Modena Music Centre at the Centre's headquarters in via Morandi 71.
The work, realised as part of the 'City to City' project promoted by the network of Unesco Creative Cities for Media Arts, of which Modena is a member, combines the Austin artist's vision of 'crop circles' with the musical compositions of Riccardo La Foresta. "Drawdown" amplifies the mysterious beauty of circular patterns in crops, which most people only glimpse briefly from aircraft windows, by using satellite images of circular fields to draw attention to the way central pivot irrigation systems are depleting fossil water reserves around the world. Riccardo La Foresta's accompanying composition is cinematic and dramatic, characterised by echoes that linger in the listener's consciousness. Dark and evocative, it lends a sense of gravity and urgency to 'Drawdown'. In this sonic context, an ordinary agricultural technique is transformed into an ominous reality, the lush irrigated fields into a blight on the landscape. The intention of the work created by the two artists is to emotionally involve the viewers, through a loop form that masks the beginning and end of the artwork, in a constant and obsessive evolution, a spiral that encourages them to seek awareness of the ongoing water crisis.
After Saturday, the work will be exhibited again during the Music Festival next June and then again in September.
The City to City project was set up to foster cultural exchanges and cooperation between Unesco creative cities around the world that are part of the Media Arts cluster by also providing support to the creative sector, in line with the UN 2030 Agenda. The 2023 edition of the project, on the theme 'Increased Humanity', has chosen to have two artists from different cities and, possibly, different continents work together. In this context, Modena has been paired with the city of Austin in Texas. The city administration therefore launched a call for proposals to select an artist active in the field of sound design and electronic music interested in developing a project in partnership with a visual artist from Austin. Through the call for proposals, Riccardo La Foresta, a percussionist and sound artist who has focused his research on the development of a system called Drummophone that allows him to treat the drum like an air instrument, was selected. On the borderline between percussion music, sound art, improvisation and drone music, La Foresta's approach reveals invisible architectures through sound.
