A land art installation on the site of the Virgo interferometer
On October 8th, on the occasion of the Contemporary Art Day promoted by AMACI (Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums) at the European Gravitational Observatory in Cascina, in the Pisan countryside, an interactive land art installation by Luca Serasini and Massimo Magrini was inaugurated. An unprecedented exploration and interpretation, between art and science, of the Virgo experiment’s ability to ‘listen’ to gravitational waves generated millions or billions of light years from Earth and, at the same time, to monitor signals from the natural and human environment in which it is immersed.
How do we capture the sound of our universe? Waiting, stillness and listening are the key ideas behind visual artist Luca Serasini and sound designer Massimo Magrini’s reflection for the European Gravitational Observatory in Cascina, home to the Virgo gravitational wave detector. Here, on Saturday October 8th 2022 at 4 p.m., on the occasion of the Italian Contemporary Day – AMACI, the installation Fringes of Interference was inaugurated. In ascolto del Cosmo (Listening to the Cosmos), a further stage in the dialogue promoted by EGO in recent years, between contemporary artists from the national and international scene and the themes of frontier scientific research.
Fringes of Interference explores and interprets, in an unprecedented way, the Virgo experiment’s ability to ‘listen’ to the faint cosmic signals generated millions or billions of light years from Earth and, at the same time, to monitor the signals coming from the natural and human environment in which it is immersed.
Serasini hascreated a large interactive land art installation in one of the Observatory’s green spaces aimed at recreating, on a much larger scale than that of the experiment, the figure of the interference fringes, the light signal through which gravitational waves are revealed and take a ‘visible’ form in Virgo.
While exploring the large fringes ‘drawn’ on the lawn, visitors will also be immersed in a soundscape created by Massimo Magrini, through a web app, in which the remote echoes of cosmic events are mixed and identified with the nearest environmental ‘noises’ (even those that cannot be heard): the vibrations of the earth or the hissing of the wind, the beating of wind turbines, the impact of sea waves on the Tyrrhenian coast, and man-made noises.
Texts and curatorship are by Eleonora Raspi, Vincenzo Napolano and Valerio Boschi.
The installation Fringes of Interference is open, free of charge, every Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., from 8 to 22 October 2022. Booking is mandatory, to book send an email to info@ego-gw.it.
Connected to this project, an exhibition dedicated to the phases of conception and realisation of the project, titled Geometry of Time, was held at Spazio Cascina – Arte al Centro from 24 to 30 September. The exhibition, which includes works on paper of various sizes and techniques, sounds and a video installation, will still be open until mid-November at Spazio Serasini, Via Ticino 8, Cecina.
Artists
Fringes of Interference is part of the research work undertaken in recent years by Luca Serasini, and establishes a dialogue with the artist’s previous land art works such as: the land art Les étoiles binaires for the artist’s residency in Ifitry (Morocco) in 2019; the indoor installation for the bi-personal Khaos/Order/Dispose (Volterra, 2018); the large light art installation on Enel Green Power chillers, Costellazioni Larderello/light art (Larderello, 2018); the light installation The Kháos of Cosmos at the Gazelli Art House gallery (London, 2017); Orion, the great hunter, for the artist residency Materia Prima in Ceppaiano (2015); Alcor & Mizar on the occasion of Art in the Woods, Holmfirth Arts Festival (Yorkshire, 2016); Pegaso, 10 stories for 10 stars for M’Arte Personale 2016 in Montegemoli; and Große Wagen for the sculpture symposium wo der Mensch spielt, ist er ganz Mensch in Weimar (2017); Constellation Taurus (Montegemoli, 2013).
Massimo Magrini carries out research at the Institute of Information Science and Technology of the National Research Council, where he works on signal processing and interactive multimedia systems for artistic and rehabilitation applications. Active for many years also as an electronic musician, with the Bad Sector project he has released dozens of albums and performed live in Europe, Russia, Australia. Since 2017, he has been teaching Interaction Design at the Alma Artis Academy of Fine Arts.
The project, born following two phases of research and experimentation entitled Samplings and Reflections in June and September 2021 and realised thanks to and with the support of EGO/Virgo, has the collaboration of the Materia Prima Foundation, the Cooltsalon network, the Over The Real international video art festival, Studio Gennai Contemporary Art, Progetto Nadar – Camera Oscura Sociale, InAbsentia, the cultural association Cantiere Nuovo and the patronage of the Municipality of Cascina.
To book visits or for further access information write to info@ego-gw.it