Alfonso Giancotti, architect and Full Professor of Design at the Faculty of Architecture of Sapienza University of Rome, has always tried his hand at giving shape through drawing to imaginary landscapes, instruments of invention of a world that was born as a necessary development of the past subjected to tension, in the tradition of his master Maurizio Sacripanti.
In particular, the series of drawings displayed in this exhibition were made during the 2021 lockdown and tell of city passages that are composed by listening to fundamental pieces of the history of twentieth-century music, by composers such as Philip Glass, Wim Mertens, Steve Reich , Hans Zimmer, Keith Jarrett and others. Soundscapes, which stage on the one hand many ideas of different cities, on the other at the bottom that of a single infinite city, walking through which a change in the melody corresponds to a change in the scenery.
The harmony between musical and architectural composition shines through in this series of drawings, made explicit by the schematic graphic score that accompanies each table, clarifying the rhythm and the relationships between the parts. And just as music is continuous movement over time, so these pieces of the city are iridescent and changeable, crystals in formation, "pierced" to demonstrate their malleability and the permeability of their environments. They are unstable spaces, contemporary ruins open to imaginary manipulations. Drawings like memory precipitates, in which experienced sensations are condensed and resound.
During the evening, the performance of Suvi Valjus, who will improvise on the violin inspired both by the pieces of music chosen by Alfonso Giancotti and by the soundscapes narrated in his drawings, in a process of transformation which, starting from musical expression, passes through transcription graphics and then go back to being music again.
Memory is sound like distant music.
Listen! That you feel?
Alberto Savinio, Captain Ulysses, 1925
Suvi Valjus, Finnish violinist and singer-songwriter, is part of the Euphoria Quartet, an experimental comedy-musical theater quartet that combines classical music with comedy and physical theatre. You combine your intense theatrical activity with collaborations with other artists including Max Gazzè, Ron, Banda Osiris, Stefano Bollani and many others. His solo collaborations for concerts, tours and recordings include Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble, L'Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio and Alessandro Mannarino and producers such as Ken Nelson, Maurizio Parafioriti and Francesco Forni.
