…explore how to create conditions that allow people to slow down and experience “internal” and “external” life.
Nowadays we are constantly on the move. Life in our society demands that we keep going, doing more, making more profit. Social media offers us an infinite amount of content that we can get as long as we keep moving our fingers from down to up. We are inundated with opportunities and FOMO that has us feeling like we need to do more. In this state, as artists, Amit and Matteo want to offer an alternative.
With that project, they want to invite people to listen to and feel the powerful source of life, inside and outside of us.
“We believe that by taking the time and connecting with these elements of life experience, we can feel more – we can increase our sensitivity.”
As Amit moves very slowly, inspired by Butoh’s approach to dance, biometric data from him such as heart rate, muscle tension and sweat will be sent to Matteo, who will translate it into sound and images. In parallel, to sonify and visualize how the body occupies space, a web is created around Amit’s body that detects when a thread of the web is touched and with how much force.
“In this way, we can show that what we perceive as stillness or slowness is actually still so full of movement. How much life can we perceive if we take the time to experience the present moment?”
About Amit
Amit, who previously collaborated with Concordia and PLANETART during his projects “Ai (Anonymous iPhonholic) Meeting” and “You See Better In The Dark,” is not only a creator but also a guest lecturer at ArtEZ’s dance program in Enschede. His work is often related to the relationship between dance and technology. By combining these two disciplines, he tries to give an insight into being human in today’s world: having a human body in a digital society.
“Working on this project gives me the opportunity to take this connection to a new level where the controlled and uncontrolled input of my human body will directly influence and represent the digital world of image and sound.”
Another important element in of Amit’s work is finding different performative settings to share dance. He believes we need to constantly challenge our ideas of what a performance can be in order to keep performance art flexible and adaptable. Therefore, he is constantly trying to work with different performative settings and different ways to share dance.
“I am excited to work on my own for the first time in which movement and sound become one.”
About Matteo
Matteo is a digital sound artist born in Santa Margherita Ligure (Italy) and currently living in Cologne (Germany). He has participated and performed at various venues and festivals of digital art, electronic and avant-garde music in Italy, Spain, Moldova, Germany and the Netherlands. His artistic research focuses on themes such as the use of technology as a mirror of humanity, the ecological sustainability of performance, the relationship between humans, nature and technology, and digital media as a new tool for metaphysical research.
“This project can be an important part of these explorations because I have the opportunity to explore a living/moving body that wants to become any body in an artistic way, in order to make natural discoveries.”
As a sound-based artist, he aims for a Renaissance approach to art making: where digital art emerges not only from abstract, structured and pure concepts, but from a data-driven, scientific observation of the world around us and within us. His goal is to re-establish art as a humanistic tool for a better understanding of reality.
“As a token of gratitude for the region, I want to make a contribution to the community with our event. In doing so, we want to convey the value of nature, diversity and innovation, which are also attractive features of Twente.”
Previous trajectories
Amit Palgi
Anonymous iPhonholic
Dancer and choreographer Amit Palgi began developing an interactive and hybrid dance performance in late 2022. In his research for this new performance, he focuses on the interaction between dancer and audience and wants his audience to influence him. He does this in two different places: together with PLANETART, he experiments with this performance within the context of a dance party, while at Concordia in the Vestzaktheatre.
To be seen: Spring 2023
