Nebula Ukiyo-E

NEBULA

Ukiyo-e Project 

site specific sound installation

(9′)


Nebula is a sound installation with the listener as center, in an intimate and personal speech of the artist. Starting from the concept expressed by Maria Montessori on the idea of the child as “spiritual embryo”, Nebula represents the possibilities and the potentials of each human being. The artist develops an open dialogue with the listener, vulnerable to doubts, uncertainties, in a true sharing.

“The senses help us to feel the space in every form and they let us to see the boundaries, to relish the borders, to touch the corners. The relation between sound and brain activates the area related to the memories, it’s for this reason that the sound environment become a place of artistic intervention. The two artists of the ukiyo-e project, with this installation, try to change the perceptive loss in a pure and immersive action. Through the idea of an active partecipation, the artist “meets” the user, without his body. He questions him, he shares his secrets. The aim is a liquid fusion, everytime different and unique. “

Antonella Perazza, curator

R.A.M Prize best Installation

MAR Art Museum, Ravenna (IT)

Pictures of the Exhibition


Photocredits by UKIYO-E

THE NOISE OF MIST / LA BRUSIA DE LA NEBULA

NEBULA by Ukiyo-e

ZING ZING ZING this sound will gives the audience the heebie-jeebies, raises hackles.

ZING ZING ZING goose pimples pop up.

We are all kind of branded or more positive spoken educated by Horror Movies.

We mostly spot the pictures of the movie after some beats of typical sound.

By means of this socialisation Ukiyo-e is working with the help of a special kind of sound system.

The visitor of NEBULA at Schleifmühlgasse 12-14, Artist Run Space Vienna, was sitting in front of a mirror, with headset on the ears.

I tried it out at the opening night and had a kind of strange trip during the show, even if I have been present at the recording.  Ukiyo-e, have done the recording in situ some weeks before.

The tape starts with the noise of opening the gallery door. I immediately turned around, facing the artists and some other audience in my back. But nobody stepped in. Looking back in the mirror, a new noise appeared.

KLACK; KLACK; KLACK, foot steps coming closer. A female voice draw nearer. She whispered in my ear. I could feel her breath. In a fever of excitement I could not follow the story she was telling, but I distinguished it as  a secret, she whistle-blowed.

KLACK; KLACK; KLACK  the noise got low, the steps departed.

KLACK; KLACK; KLACK they have reached the stairs.

STEP, STEP, STEP, the voice rang out from above, from the balcony of the gallery.

I looked up, the place was empty.

A tricky invention in recording makes it possible for Ukiyo-e to create narratives.

The artists use  a technology called Binaural. A tool which simulate the sensation of  human listening. This kind of tool appears so real that it is easy to be stagy, but it is useful to tell stories that leave the sensation of an experience in a more subtile way.

The amplification in fine art to sound art is not new, the experience of the visitor, to learn more about ourselves, about classical conditioning, is an extension on a sensual level. The physical experience doubles the effect and brands the brain.

Ukiyo-e was established 2012 by the photographer Silvia Bigi and the musician Luca Maria Baldini. They experimented with sound in combination with visual tools for several years. They did research, collected ideas and finally eliminated some things progressively. What remains at the end was the importance of sound.

 

Previous Projects of Ukiyo-e

„PrimaverAutunno” a video-sound installation, designed to evoke old memories.

„Take Your Time” a sound installation who creates a collapse between the real place and a virtual place made by sounds

„Empathy”, a sound experience who leads the listener in a deep connection with the artist, in an intimate relation

“Dépaysement”,  a video sound installation, based on the book The invisible cities, by Italo Calvino.

Text Denise Parizek, 2016

About Ukiyo-e Project

We process the world of the invisible, because we work with a performance in absence.

We start from an idea, a dream, a dialogue: then the research begin. We put down the wall between the artist and the user through an improvisation by inviting the listener to a sharing. Our aim is a total fusion artwork/ life. Our method looks like a transparent bowl: empty inside, ready to receive ideas, concepts and emotions that take the shape of the vase like a fluid. Our tools are minimal: headphones, microphones, bodies and voices. With this media, the artist takes off the mask, appearing for what he is for real.

www.ukiyoeproject.com