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Roberto Paci Dalò

Roberto Paci Dalò

area: Sound Art

Key Facts

nationality

Italy

area

Sound Art

residence

Rimini

recommending institution

TONSPUR Kunstverein Wien

time period

July 2017 - July 2017

Italian artist Roberto Paci Dalò – musician, visual artist, film maker, radio maker, theatre director and playwriter – active for years on the international scene, creates his work starting with sound and drawing, then expanding to sculpture, installation, music, film, performance, radio and collaborative projects, between institution, the independent scene, and pop culture.

His work has won him international admiration from – amongst others – John Cage, Robert Ashley, Giya Kancheli, and Aleksandr Sokurov. He won the Premio Napoli in 2015.
Recipient of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD Fellowship, Member of the Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft Berlin and the British Cartographic Society.
Founder in 1985 of the performing arts group Giardini Pensili which he leads since then.
Founder and director of Usmaradio, UNIRSM's radio station.

Art, science, and nature are the key words of his œuvre. A pioneer in the use of Internet and in integrating analog and digital technologies, his work areas include: radio transmission, telematic networks, persistence of classical tradition in contemporaneity, psychoacoustics , robotics, cybernetics, man-machine interaction, real-time sound-image elaboration, soundscapes (acoustic city portraits), cartography.

In defining his own work Paci Dalò coined the definitions: media dramaturgy and theatre of listening. He frequently creates his works in various fields, further investigating different aspects of perception of the same material. Thus scene and music works often become radio pieces or interactive sound/video installations and online projects. Born in Rimini, Italy, Roberto Paci Dalò studied visual arts and music in Ravenna and Fiesole, and began working professionally in performing arts in 1985 with his Giardini Pensili company. Paci Dalò is active as virtuoso performer (clarinets / electronics) also involved in collaborations and improvised music.

He has performed and created works in many of the world's most prestigious spaces (Kunsthalle Vienna, Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica Linz, Opera of Vienna, etc.), as well as in unusual sites: the Adriatic shore, with fifteen kilometers of sound diffusion (Publiphono); the Charterhouse of San Martino, one of the most important Neapolitan baroque churches (L'assedio delle ceneri); a building of industrial archeology at Graz (the rave Trance Bakxai at Musikprotokoll); a former Canadian Masonic lodge (Western Front Vancouver, Local & Long Distance); the ruins of an opera theatre in Rimini, closed in 1943 and reopened for only two nights (Rimini Enklave - De bello Gallico); armored cars from World War II (Deutsch-Russisches Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Schwarzes Licht); a Ventennio architecture icon (Palazzo della Civiltà del lavoro Rome-EUR, Metamorfosi); web (creation in 1995 of Radio Lada, one of the first art web radio stations).

Parallel to his music and stage work – he wrote, composed and directed about 40 theatre and music-theatre works presented worldwide – is the creation of a body of innovative film and video works regularly screened in international festivals.
His hörspiele & radioworks are produced by the main European broadcasting corporations. His installations and visual arts projects are presented internationally in museums, galleries, site specific, and the public space.

Border breaking collaborations include musicians Kronos Quartet, Scanner, Alvin Curran, Mouse on Mars, Llorenç Barber, David Moss, Terry Riley, Jon Rose, Amelia Cuni, Yasuhiro Morinaga, Tom Cora, Philip Jeck, Werner Durand, Peter Courtemanche; poets and writers Predrag Matvejevic', Levon Zekiyan, Gabriele Frasca, Patrizia Valduga; philosopher Giorgio Agamben; visual artists Robert Adrian X, Hermann Nitsch, Maurizio Cattelan, Oreste Zevola, Paolo Rosa; architects Stefano Boeri and 5+1; photographers Guido Guidi, Roberto Masotti; dancers Adriana Borriello, Caterina Sagna, and Kama Dev; designers Leonardo Sonnoli, Claudio Moderini.
His collaborations with writers & poets are countless: Yehuda Amichai, Samih al-Qasim, Lello Voce, Elisa Biagini, Mariangela Gualtieri, Tonino Guerra, Jolanda Insana, Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Tiziano Scarpa, Patrizia Valduga, Sara Ventroni, Franco Buffoni, Tommaso Ottonieri. a.o.
He has also worked on texts by Walter Benjamin, Ingeborg Bachmann, William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Euripides, Antonio Gramsci, Daniel Varujan, Giacomo Leopardi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and especially Heiner Müller and Emily Dickinson.

He directed on stage actors like: Roberto Latini, Arnoldo Foà, Umberto Orsini, Franco Branciaroli, Silvio Orlando, Roberto Latini, Marcello Sambati, Enzo Moscato, Massimo Popolizio, Sandro Lombardi, Anna Bonaiuto.

In addition to customary venues (galleries, museums, theatres), site-specific practices are one of the most important characteristics of his work: experiencing places to transform them, often with the people who live them (including ghosts in ghost towns). Relationship with people is therefore important to establish bonds that―though stemming from artistic practice―may also transcend by creating collaboration and participation on various levels. Among his geographic references, some areas of the world (and their cultures) such as Armenia and Georgia (Transcaucasia, in general), Mitteleuropa, North American deserts, Jerusalem. His systematic visits to sites of worship (in particular Armenian and Orthodox Christian churches, synagogues, and mosques) are part of his practice, while a particular relationship with the Jewish universe acts as a constant counterpoint to his oeuvre. Curator of international art projects also based on telecommunication systems. Between 1991 and 2000 founder and  curator of LADA L'Arte dell'Ascolto, the international radio festival which became a label in 2004. Within the festival he created in 1995 the pioneering Radio Lada, one of the first art web radio ever conceived. Radio Lada is still running and producing.
In 1999 - 2001 curator of Itaca: the electronic stage of the Teatro di Roma. This has been an infrastructural project which added to the regular stages of the house (one of the two major houses in Italy) an electronic stage where artists from any field were able to deal with digital technologies and the Internet as an expansion of their dramaturgical projects.
Curator (with Osvalda Centurelli) of the show Paolo Rosa. Pensare con le mani, Biennale Disegno Rimini 2013). In 2006 founder and director of Velvet Factory - space for the arts (Rimini, Italy). Artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Foundation (San Francisco), Ars Electronica FutureLab (Linz), Western Front (Vancouver), STEIM (Amsterdam), The Watermill Center NY, Montévidéo and GMEM (Marseille) and Maison du Spectacle La Bellone (Bruxelles), a.o.

Recent publications include the records 1915 The Armenian Files and Ye Shanghai (both released by Marsèll) and The Maya Effect (L'Arte dell'Ascolto) written with Scanner; the seminal book – edited together with Emanuele Quinz – Millesuoni. Deleuze, Guattari e la musica elettronica (Cronopio 2006, 2008) which includes contributions by DJ Spooky, Guy-Marc Hinant, Achim Szepanski, Christopher Cox, a.o. He released in 2012 the record Japanese Girls at the Harbor (Concrete Tokyo) created together with Yasuhiro Morinaga. His work can be heard and seen on permanent display in Göteborg (Sweden) where he created Tunnel Tales, a permanent work using a pedestrian underway for the Röde Sten Kunsthall; Masseria Torre Coccaro Fasano Brindi (The Conference of the Birds); Esino Lario / Lake Como (Animagus); Rimini Musei comunali (Trame).

Between 1997 and 2002 he has been visiting professor at the University of Siena where he created the course “Media Dramaturgy” investigating the relationship between Internet and Radio. He has been visiting professor and lecturer in several universities including Claustro de Sor Juana Mexico City and Aarhus and running workshops about media art, dramaturgy and sound in places like BBC  London, Domus Academy Milan, La Sapienza Rome, University of Bologna, UBC Vancouver, University of Newcastle / CultureLab, Aarhus University (DK).

His work has been presented throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Africa, China, Japan, South America, Russia, Middle East, Israel and Europe.
Paci Dalò's work for galleries and museums is presented by Arthub Shanghai, Galerie Mario Mazzoli Berlin and Galleria Marcolini Forlì a.o.

Roberto spent his childhood in Tremosine / Garda Lake and he has been living in Berlin, Rome, Naples, with residencies in Vancouver B.C. He currently lives and works on the Rimini's hills.

<link http: www.giardini.sm _blank external-link-new-window externen link in neuem>robertopacidalo.com 

Roberto Paci Dalò

Projectinfo

Production of TONSPUR 75: Roberto Paci Dalò/Long Night Talks  - For Robert Adrian X (8-channel sound work, 7-part series of images)
Location: TONSPUR_passage @ Q21/MQ Wien
Curator: Georg Weckwerth

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