"Bosque Marino" is a video work of Valentina Pini for which I created the soundtrack.
The huiro (phonetically pronounced weero, easily confused by non-native Spanish speakers with the English expression weirdo), is a seaweed baptized by the Chileans. Its scientific name is Macrocystis pyrifera. Slimy, wrapped in a gelatin membrane from which round blades filled with gas and liquid sprout like tentacles, the huiro leaves behind liquid traces. This morphological plasticity brings to mind the movement of alien creatures in science fiction films. During an art residency in the Casa Museo Alberto Baeriswyl (CAB) in Tierra del Fuego, Chilean Patagonia, I filmed sequences of still shots inside, focusing on capturing the atmosphere of the house characterized by various tapestries and dark wood furniture details: carved floret-framed paneled and inlaid table legs, with columns and sculpted paw feet capable of supporting heavy tabletops. In the video Bosque Marino, huiro, the living critter, almost imperceptibly moves as it takes possession of the furniture. It grows, clings to the legs of a table as if he was going to strangle them and reaches for the sideboard, leaving its slobbery traces on the marble support, which gradually becomes darker. The quality of materials, the agglutination of totally dissimilar elements, and the relation among living and the inert, creates a tense and uncanny feeling. I conceived this video to leave a variety of possible readings open, stimulating each brain differently. Those who like to be in control may feel disoriented or taken aback. The slimy, wobbly creature is hard to grasp, to control and to manipulate. This metaphor of possession acts as reminder of the exploitation of the forest and consequently the environmental impact caused by the Swiss settlers. Others might concentrate on the materiality of house and the seaweed, contemplating the film’s pictorial qualities, reminiscent of the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio’s still life painting. I personally prefer to offer a reverse colonization, where nature takes over the human. The video projection has been conceived as an immersive installation where the spectator, wrapped in a greenish fabric, can let himself be absorbed by the sound and the image. (Valentina Pini)
The music metaphorically conveys a scenario in which nature absorbs the human, so that together they emerge as something new. The music negotiates the temporal space provided by the pre-determined cut of the video. Reading, interpreting, and appropriating this temporal structure was a central process and makes it the very foundation of the music. Much like the slow or, at first glance, almost static scenes in the video, the sounds have a slow rhythm. As with the visuals, however, on closer observation they are full of lively microstructures that allow references to the visuals, but leave it up to the viewer to decide how to read them.
The sound is synthesized with an self developed instrument (Max/Msp and Bach library bachproject.net). Technically, it is a computer program that is continuously developed since its first version during an artistic residency in Berlin (February to July 2019). It has two core functions: a polyphonic synthesizer and a representation and notation environment. The latter is divided into two workspaces. One is comparable to the interface of a synthesizer with modules, while the other is used for notation, representation and algorithmic processing. Compositionally, it is about the development and organization of artistic production space and ultimately a specific operational space of aesthetic practice. In the interplay of the different representations and the acoustic response always possible in real-time, dynamic-situational structural and experimental affordances emerge, among other things, with which one can deal in a groping-perceptive as well as strictly formalizing way. For a more detailed explanation of the instrument have a look at the dedicated webpage. (Micha Seidenberg)
Year of creation
2021
Director
Valentina Pini
Tag
valentina pini, instrument developement, sound synthesis, video installation, electronic music
Credits and thanks
Video: Valentina Pini (valentinapini.ch)
Premiere: 15 Bienal de Artes Mediales de Santiago, Santiago de Chile (2021)
Camera: Loris Ciresa
Colour grading: Nicolas Perret
Short Technical Description: video HD, projection (variable dimension), 9’00’’ (loop), 2 channel sound
Bosque Marino (excerpt)
More information
Added on 10 February 2023
"Bosque Marino" is a video work of Valentina Pini for which I created the soundtrack.
The huiro (phonetically pronounced weero, easily confused by non-native Spanish speakers with the English expression weirdo), is a seaweed baptized by the Chileans. Its scientific name is Macrocystis pyrifera. Slimy, wrapped in a gelatin membrane from which round blades filled with gas and liquid sprout like tentacles, the huiro leaves behind liquid traces. This morphological plasticity brings to mind the movement of alien creatures in science fiction films. During an art residency in the Casa Museo Alberto Baeriswyl (CAB) in Tierra del Fuego, Chilean Patagonia, I filmed sequences of still shots inside, focusing on capturing the atmosphere of the house characterized by various tapestries and dark wood furniture details: carved floret-framed paneled and inlaid table legs, with columns and sculpted paw feet capable of supporting heavy tabletops. In the video Bosque Marino, huiro, the living critter, almost imperceptibly moves as it takes possession of the furniture. It grows, clings to the legs of a table as if he was going to strangle them and reaches for the sideboard, leaving its slobbery traces on the marble support, which gradually becomes darker. The quality of materials, the agglutination of totally dissimilar elements, and the relation among living and the inert, creates a tense and uncanny feeling. I conceived this video to leave a variety of possible readings open, stimulating each brain differently. Those who like to be in control may feel disoriented or taken aback. The slimy, wobbly creature is hard to grasp, to control and to manipulate. This metaphor of possession acts as reminder of the exploitation of the forest and consequently the environmental impact caused by the Swiss settlers. Others might concentrate on the materiality of house and the seaweed, contemplating the film’s pictorial qualities, reminiscent of the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio’s still life painting. I personally prefer to offer a reverse colonization, where nature takes over the human. The video projection has been conceived as an immersive installation where the spectator, wrapped in a greenish fabric, can let himself be absorbed by the sound and the image. (Valentina Pini)
The music metaphorically conveys a scenario in which nature absorbs the human, so that together they emerge as something new. The music negotiates the temporal space provided by the pre-determined cut of the video. Reading, interpreting, and appropriating this temporal structure was a central process and makes it the very foundation of the music. Much like the slow or, at first glance, almost static scenes in the video, the sounds have a slow rhythm. As with the visuals, however, on closer observation they are full of lively microstructures that allow references to the visuals, but leave it up to the viewer to decide how to read them.
The sound is synthesized with an self developed instrument (Max/Msp and Bach library bachproject.net). Technically, it is a computer program that is continuously developed since its first version during an artistic residency in Berlin (February to July 2019). It has two core functions: a polyphonic synthesizer and a representation and notation environment. The latter is divided into two workspaces. One is comparable to the interface of a synthesizer with modules, while the other is used for notation, representation and algorithmic processing. Compositionally, it is about the development and organization of artistic production space and ultimately a specific operational space of aesthetic practice. In the interplay of the different representations and the acoustic response always possible in real-time, dynamic-situational structural and experimental affordances emerge, among other things, with which one can deal in a groping-perceptive as well as strictly formalizing way. For a more detailed explanation of the instrument have a look at the dedicated webpage. (Micha Seidenberg)
Credits and thanks
Video: Valentina Pini (valentinapini.ch)
Premiere: 15 Bienal de Artes Mediales de Santiago, Santiago de Chile (2021)
Camera: Loris Ciresa
Colour grading: Nicolas Perret
Short Technical Description: video HD, projection (variable dimension), 9’00’’ (loop), 2 channel sound
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