Lorem Ipsum Situated Music
We are resuming work on the fourth edition of Lorem Ipsum, scheduled for 2020 and cancelled because of the pandemic. We are rethinking and planning it now, even with the restrictions, but with a greater drive than ever before to come together, persisting in our desire to open this space to voices, bodies and practices that are extremely personal, painstaking and complex. With an increasingly clear awareness of who is speaking, how and from whence we speak, in this new instalment of Lorem Ipsum our sights are set once again on approaches from the margins of music and play. And we are doing this based on different vectors and sensitivities. Perhaps for aesthetic questions, in a conscientious effort to blur disciplines and insert research and processes into their public presentations. Or out of an interpretation with a more or less explicit political agenda, which today from the Mediterranean updates and revises the logic and (still present) violence of colonialism and the black future.
Following the first line of work mentioned, that of giving value to inter-disciplinary processes and wrinkles, in this edition we have two site-specific proposals of a different nature for the occasion. On the one hand, the first collaboration between Anna Irina Russell and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, in a durational and immersive proposal. For the moment, we only want to reveal the aspect (and absurdity) of its materiality: lights, sound and hoses in motion. And, on the other hand, we have the also-new work with the ex-American artist DeForrest Brown, Jr. (a.k.a. Speaker Music), who will intervene in our physical space from the other side of the Atlantic in an interesting play and fusion between the meditative and the rhythmic, listening and distance, the performative and private space. This session with the author of the book Assembling a Black Counter Culture and the provocative slogan Make Techno Black Again is rounded out with a live performance by Bilbao-based artist and one-woman orchestra RRUCCULLA, armed with drums, a laptop and visual elements. Her fit is based on her very unique approach to polyrhythmics and boxes, as well as her fine synesthetic sense of image and sound.
In the second line of work, there is a fascinating intervention and artistic research out of Italy, which aims to review colonialism and Afro-descendants’ presence in Europe. Invernomuto’s film Negus is a cinematic project that focuses on music and the still-heavy and indigestible legacy of colonialism, shot through with the personal experience of its architects, and in physical and metaphysical dialogue with two magical figures: dub master Lee “Scratch” Perry and Haile Selassie I, the last emperor of Ethiopia. This proposal is also the jumping off point for STILL, another of the manifestations and returns of the artistic research of Simone Trabucchi, 50% of Invernomuto, in a lysergic, cathartic and digital review of Jamaica’s palette of sounds.
And from the Afro-descendant diaspora, and as a novelty this year, we are persevering on working with and from local sources, with a session programmed by the Jokkoo collective. This collective emerged in Barcelona out of the need to investigate and disseminate the most contemporary electronic sound and the avant-garde scene of the African continent and its diaspora.
Curated by Alicia Escobio and Anna Ramos.
Programme
Anna Irina Russell + Roc Jiménez de Cisneros
Anna Irina Russell and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros will work together for the first time in a collaboration to be presented at MACBA.
DeForrest Brown, Jr. and RRUCCULLA
DeForrest Brown, Jr. is presenting a mixed media proposal for Lorem Ipsum in a distance work with the space developed for the occasion. Likewise, armed with drums, a laptop and visual elements, RRUCCULLA's fit is based on her very unique approach to polyrhythmics and boxes, as well as her fine synesthetic sense of image and sound.
Invernomuto and STILL
Simone Bertuzzi and Simone Trabucchi have been collaborating as Invernomuto since 2003. Their practice focuses mainly on the image in movement and on sound, although sculpture, performance and publications are often integrated into their work. On this occasion we will project Negus, one of their film essays dealing with sound, colonialism and the diaspora. For his part, Simone Trabucchi, accompanied on this occasion by Devon Miles, presents STILL, an homage to popular-based culture, with an extravagant and hypnotic mix and updating of dancehall, dub and the Jamaican musical tradition, which rejoices in the legacy of bubbling and how it plays with pitch and playback speeds.
Aho Ssan and AceMo
In this fourth edition, Lorem Ipsum continues to weave networks with local sources; city agents and/or collectives that are independently strengthening the city’s soundscape outside the agenda set by the city’s already-established festival and programming policy. Thus, we have issued a carte blanche invitation to the Jokkoo Collective for the closure of Lorem Ipsum. The guests at the double programme being put together by the Jokkoo collective will be Aho Ssan and AceMo.
If you have any question, feel free to contact us on 93 481 33 68 or by email at macba [at] macba [dot] cat
