MOROLOJA
A video installation by Manuela Barile
Santa Clara Gallery, Coimbra (PT)
From February, 7th until March, 26th 2009

The multidisciplinary artist and Binaural member Manuela Barile presents from February 7th until March 26th 09 a video installation in the context of a collective exhibition at Santa Clara Gallery in Coimbra. This collective exhibition, entitled “The Mistery of Narcisus” is curated by Olga Maia Seco and besides Manuela Barile’s piece, includes visual arts works by António Santos, Bruno Gonçalves, Ilídio Salteiro, Lília Catarina, Marta Castelo and Rita da Costa. Manuela Barile’s installation, entitled “Moroloja”, was conceived and developed at Nodar Artist Residency Center (S. Pedro do Sul, PT) last November 2008 and consists in a sound and visual research about the symbolic and ritual experience of mourning.

Additional information:

Santa Clara Gallery
Rua António Augusto Gonçalves, 67
Santa Clara – 3040 – 241 Coimbra
Portugal

Tel. 239 441 657

Exhibition dates:

Every day since February 7th until March 26th 09, from 2.00 p.m. to 02.00 a.m. (Friday and Saturday from 2.00 p.m. to 03.00 a.m.)

Exhibition opening:
Saturday, February, 7th at 5.00 p.m.

MOROLOJA

In a hymn to Demeter, Homer said that when Hades, the God of the underworld, rapped her daughter Persephone:

“A bitter pain seized her heart, and she rent the covering upon her divine hair with her dear hands: her dark cloak she cast down from both her shoulders and sped, like a wild-bird, over the firm land and yielding sea, seeking her child. But no one would tell her the truth, neither god nor mortal man; and of the birds of omen none came with true news for her. Then for nine days queenly Demeter wandered over the earth with flaming torches in her hands, so grieved that she never tasted ambrosia and the sweet draught of nectar, nor sprinkled her body with water.”

Moroloja is an 11 min. video, inspired by Homer’s hymn to Demeter. It shows a young woman dressed in black clothes. She is alone, seated on a chair inside an abandoned house in Nodar (Portugal). She is Demeter, the goddess of grain and fertility. She is suffering alone, because she lost her daughter. She is living the experience of mourning. In her pain, she is human and vulnerable. After the immobility, a ritual crying and chanting begin, one that evokes the mourning wails of Salento, the southern part of Puglia, the Italian region where I was born.

The “Moroloja” are chants of the “prefiche”, women paid to wail during the mourning vigil of someone’s death in Salento.These women used to sing harrowing songs with violent and frenetic mimic, mixed with cries and shouts. They carried a white tissue on their hands that was shook, rolled up and pulled, creating a sort of rhythmic dance. In these old chants there were no references to the Christian concept of death and resurrection. After life there is only dissolution, the dark night. In these chants, quotations of Thanatos (the personification of death) and the fairy Fate who determines destiny were frequent.

The “moroloja” are chants improvised on a traditional canvas; the verses are in “Griko” (a language, derived from Greek, which is still spoken in some Salentine villages,) and alternate with strophes from the local dialect. The “moroloja” were improvised and adapted according to the circumstances, to the audience’s expectations, to the gender and degree of kinship those women had with the person who was in greater suffering.

In October 08, during an art residency in Nodar, the vocal performer and Binaural member Manuela Barile had an improvisation sessio with the Austrian musician Noid (cello)

Below is the audio file from that session:

Noid & Manuela Barile @ Nodar Play Now

Human Field Recordings
A performance by Manuela Barile
Das Kleine Field Recordings Festival, Berlin
November, 12th 2008

“Some people go out with very expensive equipment… and they sit for hours to record… and they put it on another equipment… and then it goes into the computer… and then it goes on a CD… and then it goes into a sound system. But we also use our ears to listen… and if you are gifted with the voice, you use the voice to reproduce those things that you hear…”

Rinus Van Alebeek

Manuela Barile @ DKFRF, Berlin Play Now

Photos by Kurt Korthals

Binaural and Associação Cultural de Nodar present:

4 Artists by the Paiva river
16 August 08 | 6.00 p.m.
Nodar Artist Residency Center
Nodar, S. Pedro do Sul (Portugal)

A multidisciplinary event in a rural context, organized within the scope of the Nodar Artist Residency Program. Four projects will be presented in several locations on the village and on its surroundings, forming both a spatial and an artistic itinerary through several contemporary expressions, namely sound art, performance, land art, video art and multimedia installation.

Art Projects to be presented:

Viv Corringham (UK)
“Shadow Walks”
Sound Art, Vocal Performance

A sound project with the participation of local inhabitants. The artist asked for volunteers to take her on their “special” walk, a walk that has been repeated many times and has distinct meaning or significance for that person. An initial walk with the person along their selected route, in which their conversations were recorded, was followed by the artist’s solo walk in which she attempted to sense her previous companion’s traces on the walk and to make these audible through her own improvised singing in the location.

Lezli Rubin-Kunda (Israel)
“Marking Stones”
Performance, Visual Arts

The artist wanders through the village, where the local slate stone is used to build walls, houses, pave roads, mark boundaries. She responds to the rocks at different sites by marking incising, drawing onto them, as well as making rubbings from them. A video and a set of photos will document her spontaneous interactions at each site. And for the open house, a live performance will take place along the stone roadway.

Jurate Jarulyte Weiss (Lithuania)
“Dream Objects”
Land Art

Behind every real object there is a dream object” (J. Baudrillard, “The System of Object”). Do we try to adjust our imagination to the real object or a situation? Then, how do our “dream objects” interact with new “real objects” or situations? The project intends to look for a natural and harmonious interaction with a local place and to create some extraordinary “dream like” situation.

Francisco Janes (Portugal)
“Interior”
Mixed-Media Installation

The project was structured around a hike along the river Paiva, from Nodar to the source in Carapito, Moimenta da Beira. Sounds, photos and video were recorded in Nodar and during the walk and will be presented as a mixed-media installation. The elements captured by the artist reflect a subjective vision of the relationship between a body and a landscape as well as the contingency and memory of a trip made against the flow, to the “interior” of a river.

Manuela Barile and Rui Costa were at MUSAC – Contemporary Art Museum of León (Spain) were they directed between February, 19th and 22nd, 2008 their workshop “La Scatola: The Amplified Expression of the Body”.

This workshop was structured with the purpose of creating a multidisciplinary performance through collaborative processes and intersecting body, voice, physical-acoustic space and sensors as a way of amplifying their expressive possibilities. A group of 20 enthusiastic performers, musicians and students helped to conceive a very powerful body-voice-electronics improvisation that was seen by an audience of about 30 people.

Here are some photos of the workshop:

La Scatola
An intermedia project by Manuela Barile and Rui Costa

“La Scatola” explores the notion of confinement using multiple approaches. Working on the border zone between the ‘I’ and the outside world, ‘La Scatola’ (“The Box”, in English) can be thought as a narrative device, that represents a diffuse space between the “inside” and the outside”, between the “I” and the “other”, in which multiple and sometimes opposite strength lines are present: sensitive manifestations of the incarcerated and/or protected body, distorted visions of the external world, anxiety, wishes and memories. We may define this zone in purely spatial terms (“forbidden zone”, “abyss”, “barrier”) but also in terms of bidirectional “energy fluxes” created by the sensorial and emotional projection of the incarcerated individuality into the outside world (pain, desire, resistance, impotence, etc.) and by the representation (idealized, distorted, diffuse) of the outside world in the mind and body of the incarcerated individual.

The several narrative devices to be used will be organized in order to create enigmatic situations, between the familiar and the weird (or distant). The images or objects to be used, in its simplicity and depuration, can be transformed in a mirror capable of facing the audience with their own memories and individual experiences.

The project is developed in multiple metamorphosis and presented in several interchangeable contexts: installations, performances, concerts (solos / duos), site-specific presentations and workshops.

Artistic Direction: Manuela Barile (Italy) and Rui Costa (Portugal)
Video Collaboration: Maile Colbert (USA)
Sound Collaboration: Mario Volpe (Italy)
Dramaturgic Collaboration: Bojana Bauer (Serbia)
Production Direction: Luís Costa
Artist Residencies: Nodar Guest Studio (Portugal) | MoKS (Estonia)

Funding: General Office of the Arts | Ministry of Culture, Portugal

Acknowledgments: Associação Cultural de Nodar (Portugal) | S. Pedro do Sul Municipality (Portugal) | Zoom – Associação Cultural (Portugal) | Amigos do Museu de Olaria de Barcelos (Portugal) | ZDB Gallery (Portugal) | MoKS (Estonia) | Vel-Net (Italy) | Villa Franchin (Italy) | Madcap Collective (Itália) | Città di Venezia (Italy) | MARCO – Contemporary Art Museum of Vigo (Spain) | Sinsal Collective (Spain) | MUSAC – Contemporary Art Museum of León (Spain) | Junta de Castilla y León – Consejeria de Cultura y Turismo (Spain) | Almazen. Serial Artist (Spain) | La Casa Encendida de Obra Social Caja Madrid (Spain) | Asociación Musicalibre (Spain) | Centro Huarte – Contemporary Art Centre of Navarra (Spain) | Presence Capitale (France) | Erratum (France)

Upcoming Presentations:

28 January 08, 8.30 p.m.
Manuela Barile
Concert for voice and sound objects
Festival Hurta Cordel 2008 – International Festival of Musical Improvisation
La Casa Encendida, Madrid (Spain)
http://www.lacasaencendida.es

5 and 6 February 08, 8.00 p.m.
Manuela Barile and Rui Costa
Intermedia installation-performance (5 Feb.) and intermedia concert for voice, electronics, sound objects and video (6 Feb.)
Almazen, Barcelona (Spain)
http://www.almazen.net

19 to 22 February 08, from 5.00 p.m. until 9.00 p.m.
Manuela Barile and Rui Costa
Workshop “La Scatola: The Amplified Expression of the Body”
A theoretical-practical workshop with the purpose of creating a multidisciplinary performance through collaborative processes and intersecting body, voice, physical-acoustic space and sensors as a way of amplifying their expressive possibilities.
A workshop for musicians, sound artists, performers, actors, either professionals or self-teaching, with interest in experimental and multidisciplinary artistic creation.
MUSAC – Contemporary Art Museum of León (Spain)
Applications to be received until 19 February 08
http://www.musac.es

29 February 08, 9.00 p.m.
Manuela Barile and Rui Costa
Intermedia concert for voice, electronics, sound objects and video
Villa Franchin, Mestre – Venice (Italy)
http://www.veneziagiovane.net

4 and 5 April 08, 9.00 p.m.
Manuela Barile and Rui Costa
Intermedia concert for voice, electronics, sound objects and video
Centro Huarte – Contemporary Arte Centre, Navarra (Spain)
http://www.centrohuarte.es

Artistic Biographies:

Manuela Barile is an Italian vocal researcher and an interdisciplinary performer presently living in Portugal. Her artistic research is based on a project-oriented work that combines vocal sounds with different media (video, photography, installations, performance, concert-performance, drawing, writing). Her sound vocabulary was enriched through a series of studies and researches, around oriental and occidental vocal traditions, either made by herself or with teachers such as Amelia Cuni (Druphad) and Tran Quang Hai (Harmonic chant). Her CD, “Creature Sonore” was released in 2007 on Alg-a netlabel.

Rui Costa is a Portuguese sound artist from Lisbon, Portugal. He has been performing live for more than 10 years. Rui’s artistic expression favours the creation of intricate sonic textures through computer-based sound manipulation techniques and using as a source field recordings and live sampling of acoustical instruments. He developed several conceptual projects, presented in art galleries and concert spaces across Portugal, Spain and USA. As an example, it is worth mentioning the intermedia work “Nodar”, developed with Iñaki Ríos and premiered at the Musica Ex Machina festival, in Bilbao, Spain. His work has been published in several sound art compilations (Sirr, Crónica, No Type, Universe International, Mandorla).

+info:

http://www.manuelabarile.com
http://www.myspace.com/ruigcosta

Manuela Barile presents in Bordeaux during “Burn Out – Post Crash”, 9th Symposium of Sound Arts and Mix Media, the solo voice+objects version of the intermedia project “La Scatola“, developed along with the sound artist Rui Costa. The symposium is curated by Joachim Montessuis (Erratum magazine) and Yvan Etienne, in connection with André Lombardo (artistic director of Présence Capitale).

Burn Out – Post Crash
9th Symposium of sound arts and mix media
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Entrepôt Lainé – CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain
Bordeaux, France
from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Full program:

Giuseppe Ielasi + Thomas Ankersmit (IT / NL)
Manuela Barile (IT)
Samon Takahashi (FR)
Jorg Piringer (AT)
Bryan Saunders (US)
Raionbashi & Kutzkelina (DE)

The Binaural director and interdisciplinary performer Manuela Barile released her first record “Creature Sonore” on Alg-a netlabel. Creature Sonore was recorded at Manuela’s home studio in Bologna, Italy and all the included vocal sounds are natural and the result of techniques developed by the artist between 2003 and 2006. They were recorded naturally in real time and without electronic manipulation.

CD Info:

[alg029] – Manuela Barile – Creature sonore

1. Lullaby for whales
2. Das ist mir wurst!
3. Sentir des ailes pousser dans le dos
4. Mixed fry
5. Larve gongolanti
6. Suspiro de alivio
7. On the wing
8. Cik Ciak song

Some additional sounds from Manuela Barile: live performance “InCanto” at Luso Café, Lisbon (May 2006):

Manuela Barile: In Canto @ Luso Cafe Play Now