San Fedele Auditorium: Multimedia Project

The Centro San Fedele, with its legendary auditorium, is one of Milan's cultural hubs for musical avant-garde. And by avant-garde we don't mean the usual, purely artistic sense of "provocative, allergic to convention, beyond the commonplace," but rather a more general and meaningful "ahead of its time." To look forward, then, to try to reach dimensions that break with traditional schemes and limits, but do so by virtue of a research aimed at discovering and/or creating something that lies beyond, something new, unexplored, uncontaminated. This is the trait that distinguishes all the events organized and promoted by this genuine institution, which continues to offer the city a safe harbour for projects far removed from the masses and the ordinary, projects keen to boldly explore a macrocosm that proves, day after day, that it still has so much to give.

The Multimedia Project is, chronologically speaking, the latest forward-looking series to emerge from within the walls of San Fedele. A cycle of six shows, six performances that take as their object of research inner spaces and their creation, discovery and revelation through art and its perceptual dimension. All this while pushing the limits of the sensorial, working in the theoretical-scientific direction of stimulating key points of the imagination, and in the more purely practical-artistic direction of generating imagination itself. Sound (music) and image (video, film, photography) are at once the means that create inner spaces and their ultimate purpose, their dwellings, their vessels.

To achieve this, the Centro's technical crown jewel is the acousmonium, a system for projecting sound in space devised by François Bayle and made up, in effect, of an orchestra of loudspeakers. The aim is the spatialization of sound, diffused through speakers with different timbres and characteristics in order to organize acoustic space, but also psychological (and therefore perceptual) space.

The next unmissable date of this early 2015, set for Saturday 9 February, will feature Stephan Mathieu and the Otolab collective, a genuine piece of Milanese experimental underground history. Currently led by the two masterminds Luca Pertegato and Massimiliano Gusmini, it has brought together under its banner numerous artists from the most disparate backgrounds, acting as a veritable laboratory, and thus gathering a team of experimenters intent on interfacing, putting into dialogue and even merging their creative experiences. The collective has borne much fruit, translating in particular into a long series of audiovisual performances that rank among the pinnacle of multimedia made in Italy, capable of winning acclaim and astonishment even within the strongholds of experimental art. The union — anything but obvious — of conceptual form and artistic substance has allowed the Otolab name to build a reputation on a continental scale.

For this third instalment of the series, Otolab has developed a new creation, titled "Dystopia" (a preview can be seen in the video at the bottom of the article). A performance about which the two have so far revealed very little, limiting themselves to speaking of an exploration of natural/urban satellite territories in constant mutation toward a kind of organic matter, and constantly enveloped by a hypnotic "orbiting nebula." The latter is made up of a mix of dub-techno rhythms and drone-noise soundscapes, with the sonic element called upon to play a role of fundamental importance. To delve deeper into this fascinating multisensory work, we spoke directly with Pertegato and Gusmini, well aware that the only true way to understand it will be direct experimentation — that is, attending the event.

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Interview with Luca Pertegato and Massimiliano Gusmini (Otolab)

Your art takes shape as a mix of different expressions, created with different methods, approaches and means. How did you arrive at blending these together?

Luca: I think the answer can be found in the history of Otolab, which in 2001 saw a group of people — highly diverse in age, artistic and professional background — bring to life a physical and imaginative space, and devote themselves to audiovisual research with a D.I.Y. approach. Over time, this mixture spontaneously gave rise to projects reflecting this multiplicity of approaches, languages and technologies. It's equally true that we've always recognized this peculiarity, encouraged it, and made it something of our own style.

Massi: I think the diversity of skills within Otolab has benefited everyone. On the other hand, live media in general is a multidisciplinary activity. This way, the starting points of the projects can be very different, yet carried out with the same sensibility. We rarely use the word "art," perhaps because it's limiting in many respects — in group work you often feel the need to keep the egos of the "artists" in check.

In that sense, where does "Dystopia" sit within your artistic journey? What premises did you start from to develop this performance?

Luca: "Dystopia" is a classic example of what we were saying before, a project born within the laboratory from the fusion of different sonic and visual research paths. On one hand we have the research with self-built analogue instruments, tested over the past few years with the live show "Megatsunami"; on the other, the research into digital rhythmic grids developed on dancefloors. The melting pot of the laboratory then allowed us to bring these languages into dialogue, to select and refine sounds and images, to organize them according to an audiovisual score, and finally to bring the final live show to life.

What role do the sound and video components play in it? How did you develop the relationship between them?

Massi: This live show is rather unusual compared to Otolab's other A/V projects, and it originates from purely sonic experimentation. We were searching for new sonorities from the Lumanoise, ones that could be tuned to the digital rhythms. The visuals were paired in afterward, out of empathy with the musical imagery.

Luca: At first the live show had no video; we entrusted the audience's visual attention to the physical action of manipulating the lights used on stage. The visual project was developed later, simply to meet staging needs, but over time it integrated very well, reinforcing the overall atmosphere of the live show. The animations, slow and hypnotic in pace, follow the sonic mood, with a few precise interactions with the audio, but overall they create a visual journey that could stand entirely independent of the music. It's perhaps one of the Otolab works where audio/video synchrony is least perceptible, but where the synesthetic research is most grounded in the overall atmosphere generated by the images.

Did you work around a precise concept, or did the concept emerge through the work itself?

Massi: Some works come more from the gut than from the mind. “Dystopia” is a journey, and it took shape over time. Unlike other projects, we gave priority to the music, to instinct, the concept and the visuals came later.

Luca: I'd talk about a kind of shared “mood” around which the sonic and visual atmospheres were generated; the actual concept took structure later, when the layering of layers began to reveal the final imagery.

What equipment will you be using during the performance? What's your relationship with technology, and where do you stand on the eternal “battle” between digital frontiers and analogue organicism?

Luca: When we started out on this audiovisual journey, we used analogue instruments, since our PCs weren't capable of delivering the level of quality/speed we needed. Then came the great digital intoxication of the early millennium, and we absorbed it. Today we live in an age of media archaeology and fascination with the analogue instruments of the past, and of course we're not immune to it. That said, our approach to technology has always been secular and experimental — we've never ruled out any solution a priori; on the contrary, we've often sought out contamination between technologies and languages, between digital and analogue, trying to get the best from the crossing of different worlds — in the lab's own jargon, what we call “mixed technique.” For Dystopia we use a few self-built analogue mini-synths (Lumanoise), various lights to play the Lumanoise, a self-built spring-and-Tibetan-bell instrument, Ableton Live for the rhythmic weave, and Isadora for the live video — once again, digital and analogue together.

Massi: I work with digital and analogue indiscriminately, looking for the best of both worlds; I don't take part in that battle.

As for the event as a whole, what elements does your performance share with Stephan Mathieu's, which will precede yours? Is there, in your view, a common thread?

Luca: We've known and admired Stephan Mathieu's work for a long time, and there are certainly points in common, but I think we'll really find that out only by the end of the evening.

Massi: I got to know him after a really beautiful live show at the Triennale four or five years ago. The visuals for that live were by our friend Claudio Sinatti, who passed away last April. I remember that show very well, and I remember it as one of Claudio's finest works — his visuals matched Stephan's music perfectly. Right now I couldn't say exactly what to expect; I'm curious.

Looking back at your past and your artistic history, can you identify a common thread running through all the evolutions of your art, or do you prefer to consider each project as a separate, self-contained birth?

Luca: Of course every project has its own history, generally quite different from the others, but languages and techniques often overlap, and looking back over our short history we realize that a shared imagery has developed, even among Otolab's different authors. There are certainly some important, shared elements within the lab: a strong interest in audiovisual synesthesia, a minimal approach to design, group work, and the sharing of knowledge and experience.

Massi: There's definitely a common thread; working as a group means there's a shared past that lets everyone draw on each other's experience. That said, some works are crucial turning points along the way. I think it's healthier to spot the common thread in hindsight than to impose one from the outset for the sake of stylistic recognisability. Those are things that have never interested us — we generally stop working on a given type of live show once we realize we're repeating ourselves.

Sonically, yours is a style that brings together a number of quite different components without ever conforming to any single one of them. What's your strictly musical background, and how do you channel it into your sonic path?

Luca: My musical background began forming in the Seventies, moving through different music scenes, and even today I have wide-ranging musical interests, but perhaps it's electronic music alone — whether “highbrow” or not — that truly struck me like lightning, starting with “Trans Europe Express” by Kraftwerk. It's hard to look inside your own work searching for sonic traces in memory; the process of musical assimilation and its return in the form of a live performance is unconscious. If I had to think of influences behind “Dystopia,” I'd say I recognize traces of György Ligeti and Sonic Youth, but also a lot of Philip K. Dick.

Massi: I started out in the Nineties, playing alto and baritone sax, but I think the more interesting things began towards the end of the Nineties, when I devoted myself entirely to electronic music. After 2001, all my output was concentrated within Otolab. Aside from particularly experimental projects, I mostly produce techno, dub-techno and electro. At different times I recognize the influence of Kraftwerk, Einstürzende Neubauten and Pan Sonic.

If I'm not mistaken, you've already had the chance to perform using the acousmonium. What do you think of this system's potential? Do you believe it's an element capable of expanding and enhancing the expressive potential of your art?

Luca: Yes, we've had the chance to experiment with the acousmonium on other occasions, always at the Auditorio San Fedele, and the result has always been a surprise — you can achieve some really interesting sound-spatialization effects that offer new perspectives on the live show. Of course, to make the most of the acousmonium it would help to design the audio specifically with the system in mind.

Massi: The acousmonium definitely broadens the perceptual and narrative possibilities. When it works it's exhilarating, but the result is never a given — getting the best out of it requires real synergy between the performer and the acousmatic diffusion. The "intentions" of the music have to be interpreted, and that's not easy. Last year Cospito did an excellent job on our set.

One last thing, just out of curiosity: where does your stage name come from?

Luca: The full story would take a while, but to put it simply: OTO (Japanese for sound or noise) + LAB (laboratory) = OTOLAB

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Otolab, "Dystopia" (2014/2015)

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