Dear inhabitants of the world,
It has long been a tradition to present a concert to welcome the New Year. This year, we would like to thank you for inviting us to share in this celebration, for recognizing our rights to sing with you on New Year’s Eve -and not for labelling us “urban pests” as many others do.
Beginning the 31st of December 2020, we hope that you will take the time to spot our presence in the upper-left corner of a window, behind a radiator, between ceiling lights, under a wardrobe: this is our home as much as it is yours. We hope that by hearing and seeing us closely you will join this concert, and that at its end you would consider allowing our continuing but threatened, unlimited existence.
This concert will unite us all. While this pandemic continues to divide people around the globe, we sing to engender a shift, to change anthropocentric and capitolocentric behaviours. We hope that in this New Year you might rethink a way that we can all live together, and renew the good will of cohabitation.
It is only by banding together to explore the new threads of connectivity woven so tightly into the fabric of our universe that we may communicate the urgency of our project.
A transdisciplinary research collaboration together with Studio Tomás Saraceno, the Arachnophilia community and with Stavros Katsanevas at the European Gravitational Observatory; Peggy S. M. Hill, researcher in biotremology from the University of Tulsa; and groundbreaking sonic astrophysicist Wanda Díaz-Merced, who after losing her sight at age 20 began hearing the stars.
And featuring the contribution of Nobel Prize-winning experimental physicist Barry Barish, whose work with LIGO brought about the first direct detection of gravitational waves. With vibrations from the universe and the Arachnophilia community, this concert is a performance for all beings. It is about breaking our cultivated phobias, and learning from our closest co-habitants to sense the entanglements of the cosmic/web.
"When we decided that we were special, that we didn't have to follow the rules that every life form on the planet follows to survive, then we stopped learning from all of these other lifeforms."
Peggy S. M. Hill,
researcher in biotremology from the University of Tulsa
Hear spiders building their webs and more with
the Arachnophilia sound archive,
recorded and collected by members of
the Arachnophilia community.
Promoted by Roma Culture and produced by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and Sovrintentendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali in collaboration with Zètema Progetto Cultura. Curated by Costantino D’Orazio with Francesca Macrì and Claudia Sorace, curators of OLTRE TUTTO.
Idea, composition, visuals & sounds: Tomás Saraceno.
With project collaborators: Wanda Díaz-Merced, Stavros Katsanevas, European Gravitational Observatory and Peggy S. M. Hill, University of Tulsa and special thanks to Nobel Laureate Barry Barish.
With the support of Studio Tomás Saraceno in particular Sarah Kisner, Saverio Cantoni, Marina Höxter, Irina Bogdan, Lars Behrendt, Claudia Meléndez, Manuela Mazure, Dario J Laganà, Giulia Albarello, Gustavo Alonso Serafin, Lucas Mateluna, Jillian Meyer, Lugh O’Neill, Soledad Pons, Ilka Tödt and collaborators Christian Flemm and Caterina Nicolini.
With vibrations from the Arachnophilia community: Nephila senegalensis, Pardosa lugubris, Cyrtophora citricola, Habronattus dossenus from the Arachnophilia Archives recorded at Studio Tomás Saraceno, and Duncan Anderson, Ally Bisshop, Markus J. Buehler, Peggy S. M. Hill, Prof. Dr. Hannelore Hoch, Odysseus Klisouras, Marco Isaia, Elena Piano, Patrick Reddy, Roland Mühlethaler.
With vibrations from the universe: Wanda Díaz-Merced, Stavros Katsanevas, Vincenzo Napolano, European Gravitational Observatory, AGC7849 Spiral Galaxy, Solar winds, Solar storms, Cosmic Microwave background, Gravitational waves, Earth-Moon-Earth radio connections, Topography of the moon, Damian Elias, Dustin Jaschko, Advanced Composition Explorer, Nasa, Aerocene, Giuseppe Greco, University of Urbino, Valerio Boschi, INFN/Pisa, Irene Fiori, Gary Hemming, Pierre Chanial, EGO, CA Muller Radio Astronomy Station, Dr. Gregory Neumann.
With sound processing in collaboration with Stefano Ferrari and Constantin Carstens at Paraverse Studios Berlin.
With moving images in collaboration with Matías Lix Klett, Felix von Boehm, Charlotte Jansen, Maximiliano Laina and archives from Tomás Saraceno: Quasi-social musical instrument IC 342 built by: 7000 Parawixia bistriata - six months, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, 2017, Particular Matter(s): Jam Session, How to entangle the universe in a spider/web?, Sounding the Air, Palais de Tokyo, 2018, Palazzo Strozzi, 2020.
Arachnomancy App: an artwork by Tomás Saraceno, developed with the Arachnophilia Archives, Studio Tomás Saraceno and Ingo Randolf, Mei-Fang Liau and Abe Pazos Solatie.
With producers from Rome: Martina Merico, Sarah Parolin.
With technical director from Rome: Maria Elena Fusacchia.
With light beams hosts in Rome: Lago Bullicante Ex Snia, Casa della Memoria di San Lorenzo, and Caritas in Colle Oppio Park.
With technical support from LaserAnimation Sollinger: Michael Sollinger, Daniel Brune, Janik Albrecht, Alina Wettengel.
With special thanks to Antonella Berruti and Francesca Pennone of Pinksummer Contemporary Art, Genoa, and Andersen’s, Copenhagen; Ruth Benzacar, Buenos Aires; and Tanya Bonakdar, New York/Los Angeles, Verónica Fiorito and the teams from Centro Cultural Kirchner, Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación Argentina and Canal Encuentro, and to all the community members of Arachnophilia, Arachnomancy and Aerocene.
Thanks to Sofia Lemos , Luciana and the Saraceno family
Courtesy the artist.
© Tomás Saraceno, 2020
How to hear the universe in a spider/web: A live concert for/by Invertebrate Rights is property of Tomás Saraceno. Material may not be copied, reproduced, shared, modified or in any way distributed without express written consent from Studio Tomás Saraceno.
Image credit of Wanda Díaz-Merced: Creator: Marla Aufmuth | Credit: Marla Aufmuth / TED Copyright: Marla Aufmuth