We continue our journey of discovery of the Grove installation, a metaphor for new spaces to live in and an evolution of the human species towards the creation of hybrid beings in close connection with both technology and the environment, understood as plants, animals, but also as minerals and inert beings!

If you missed the first interview with Philip beesley - architect, visual artist and director of >>>Living Architecture Systems Group in Waterloo, Canada and author of Grove Installation at the Biennale Architettura 2021 - >>>you can read it here.

Today we will explore the point of view of Sascha Hastings – very skilled curator and art producer, and a very nice person – who followed the complex process of moving Grove from Canada to Venice: an adventure further complicated by the arrival of the global pandemic in 2020.

Interview with Sascha Hastings

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Maddalena Mometti: First of all, I would like to ask you to tell me about the genesis of the adventure and all the stages of organisation required to get Grove Installation to Venice, please.
Sascha Hastings: In the early fall of 2019 Hashim Sarkis invited Philip Beesley and Living Architecture System Group to the Venice Biennale. At that time Philip contacted me about being involved as I had worked with him on his 2010 installation at the Canada Pavillion and on other Canadian exhibitions at the Biennale.
He was working on an exhibition in Cambridge, called >>> Meander which included an immersive distributed soundscape developed in collaboration with the Netherlands-based group >>> 4DSOUND .
And we had the idea of linking the new Venice installation to Meander, to create a connection between the two pieces of art. We imagined a very interactive installation. So we came to Italy in January 2020 for a site visit and meetings with the Biennale in order to understand how to make this possible and to plan the construction of the installation.
But then we started hearing news about the pandemic and at the end of February 2020 Italy was in lockdown. So we asked the Biennale organisers what they thought was going to happen. They assured us that the Biennale would still take place as planned.

Unfortunately, the pandemic progressed rapidly and we were told in March that the Biennale would be postponed until a date to be determined.
So we started to ask ourselves some important questions:
_ can we afford to continue working on the project, considering that postponing it even by six months was a major investment in terms of time and costs?
_ can we propose the same type of installation in a context where social distancing is required?
We decided to modify the exhibition in order to fit the new situation of social distancing and we started thinking about what we would do if the Biennale would be transformed into a digital-only event.

And the idea that came to our minds was to reduce the physical density of the installation while dramatically enhancing the use of sound to create extensive sound piece and to design custom speakers. We also decided to branch out into film as major new component of our work.Through Philip’s previous collaboration with avant-garde Dutch fashion designer Iris Van Herpen, he had met the very skilled British filmmakers Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton-Jones. They showed us some CGI [Computer-generated imagery films]films they had already created: they were completely amazing!
We decided that together with Warren and Nick, we would use the new Venice work to convey the idea of life coming from death, to give a message of hope during difficult times.
We started to work with the filmmakers. We sent them digital files of Philip’s physical work and they transformed them into computer graphics.
In the meantime the composer, Salvador Breed, and sound designers, 4DSOUND, started creating the sound component.
Warren, Nick and Salvador worked together to create a film and sound experience that meld together seamlessly, like they are one thing.

The installation team

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Maddalena Mometti: What about your collaboration with the Conservatorio di Musica di Vicenza “Arrigo Pedrollo”?
Sascha Hastings: It was a wonderful collaboration! We were so lucky! When I was in Venice in January 2020, after meeting you Maddalena, I also met some other friends and contacts to potentially work with. We already knew we needed to find a very skilled local installation team that also specialized in audio/video but of course, at that time, we didn’t realize how heavily we would come to rely on them because of the pandemic.
Some friends who are pioneers in he filed of Interaction Design introduced me to Davide Tiso, a sound designer and professor at the conservatory. And then Davide managed to involve twenty-one of his students in our project.
The Biennale was also very supportive and provided four Academia students. Davide coordinated the whole installation team, with some help from two of our colleagues.

It was really incredible! The students were very dedicated and enthusiastic to be involved in our project. I think they were particularly excited because they hadn’t had a chance to do any practical things for a whole year (because of the lock down period).

In spite of all the difficulties due to Covid-19 restrictions – masks, regular molecular testing, etc. – the students came days after days to help us with great generosity and commitment. We were really lucky to have had them on our team! I really want to thank them again!
Normally, when Philip’s studio does an installation, we send a large team that has experience installing his work, because it is quite complex. This time we had to improvise because of travel restrictions. It went like this: we flat-packed the pieces of the installation in crates and sent them from Toronto to Venice. The students then assembled the installation’s physical “cloud” component and the speakers, under the guidance of Davide and two of our former colleagues who were able to travel to Venice to assist. While the Biennale built the concave floor screen for the projection of the film.
At that point another new local colleague, Amerigo Piana, joined the team to help us adjust and synchronize the sound, film and lighting on site. One of the conservatory students continued to collaborate with us throughout the Biennale, by regularly checking that the technical equipment (speakers, etc.) was still set up and working correctly.

It was quite an adventure for our studio to coordinate the installation team remotely, from so far away and with six-hours time difference. But our colleagues in Venice were fantastic! At the end of each day they sent us photographs and notes of what they had done, and then Philip and our studio tech team gave them instructions for the next day. Of course we also had lots of video calls – thank goodness for Whatsapp!

Maddalena Mometti: What was the best moment of this adventure?
Sascha Hastings: There were several very emotional moments. One was when we figured out how to make the installation possible despite the pandemic by modifying the initial design of the project to focus more on the non-physical components — sound and film. We realized that we could deliver a great installation, whether the Biennale happened in real life or was only virtual. Another moment was when we saw the first preview of the film. It was simply breathtakingly beautiful and astonishing to see Philip’s work come to life in film.
But for me the most amazing moment was when I first saw the complete installation up and running. We almost couldn’t believe it after all the setbacks and challenges. There were times it had felt like maybe it was impossible to do with Covid-19. But we persevered and we did it!

This adventure has been a miracle!

What it means to be a curator

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Maddalena Mometti: Can you tell me more about your job as curator?
Sascha Hastings: I started my career completely by accident. I studied Renaissance Studies and German Literature in Toronto and Germany. I knew I wanted to work in the arts and culture world but I didn’t know where and how yet.
Then I got an internship at CBC Radio, where I started doing research for the flagship national arts program, and then gradually I learned how to produce interviews for the radio! It was amazing training for curatorial work: in radio you have to tell coherent and interesting stories to an audience that is curious and intelligent but doesn’t necessarily know about the specific art topic in detail. I learned a lot about how to present and tell stories to diverse audiences and about arts in Canada, and around the world in general.
Being a curator is very similar to being a radio producer, only your medium is more visual than verbal. You still have to tell interesting stories to people and keep them engaged. As a curator, I see myself as a kind of conduit or editor between the artist and the public. My role is to translate and transmit the artist’s work to the public in the best possible way.

About Venice

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Maddalena Mometti: What brought you to Venice in the first place?
Sascha Hastings: Years ago I produced a radio interview with some Canadian artists who were doing the Canada Pavillion at the Venice Art Biennale and I thought: “This is so cool! One day I want to work on the Venice Biennale!”. Then a few years later I had the chance to work with Philip Beesley on his exhibition for the 2020 Canada Pavillion – that was my first Biennale experience.
Since then I have worked on five Canadian exhibitions at the Biennale, and even lived in Venice for a year. I really love Venice!

>>> Vai all’intervista con Philip Beesley!

Other posts on new fashion scenarios:

>>> A new architecture for a new kind of human beings Interview with Philip Beesley

>>> Fashion is design Il ritorno della Moda con la “M” maiuscola a Venezia

>>> Fashion and Science

>>> Digital Glamour: when fashion opens up new worlds “Digital as the fifth element, in addition to air, water, earth and fire” by Chic Words

>>> Green Carpet Fashion Awards 2020 “What we wear speaks to who we are and what be believe in” Robert Downey

 
 
 
 
IMAGES
All photos are courtesy of Philip beesley and Sascha Hastings.
Starting from the top:
[images 1,2] Grove installation photos

[image 3] The students who did the installation

[image 4] Chic Words visiting the Grove installation

Fashion has always been a phenomenon that interprets and reflects the society of which it is an expression, telling dreams and visions and interpreting technological, scientific and cultural discoveries.

The event that has had the greatest impact on society in recent years is the pandemic. Our daily lives have changed, but our way of perceiving ourselves and our relationship with technology and the world has changed even more. We have realised how our destinies as individuals are intertwined, how our survival is linked to that of others and to the health of the environment. And in this period of profound uncertainty, our gaze has turned both to science, asking medicine and chemistry to find a cure for the physical ailment that was afflicting us, and to new technologies, asking them to provide us with the means to fulfil our daily and professional needs to connect, interact and exchange ideas, emotions and even material goods at a distance. We realised how real and important the virtual dimension really is and how it is inherent in our very nature.

These reflections arise from the extraordinary opportunity I had to talk with Philip Beesley - architect, visual artist and director of >>>Living Architecture Systems Group in Waterloo, Canada – and Sascha Hastings – very skillful curator and art producer and nice person – about Philip’s work presented at the 2021 Biennale Architettura.

This opportunity arose from a series of fortunate coincidences. I had the opportunity to meet (virtually) Philip a few years ago, on the occasion of an interview I conducted for a magazine I was working with at the time, and I immediately appreciated his artistic work and his great empathy on a personal level. Afterwards, I was able to meet Sascha, the very skillful curator who followed the organisation of the transfer of his work from Canada to Venice: the last chat I had in front of a cup of raku ceramic tea in Venice before the lock down in 2020.
From there I followed the fate of the Grove installation until finally, this year, I was able to admire it in all its beauty at the Arsenale in Venice.

This resulted in two interviews that I propose in two very exciting articles! You can find one below as you continue reading, the other one at >>> this link!

Interview with Philip Beesley

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How can we live together?

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Maddalena Mometti: How did the concept for Grove installation come to your mind? What inspired you?
Philip Beesley: What inspired me at the very beginning of this project was the question that Hashim Sarkis sent to me in his very first invitation at La Biennale di Venezia: “How will we live together?” It made me pause and try to gather hopes and dreams in response.
In answering that question I made a little drawing. The drawing shows a rather strained surface of the earth. I have been fortunate in living on strong, solid land. In Canada, I can sometimes stand on intensely deep, solid granite, carved by the ice ages. Similarly when I lived in Rome, I loved standing on the tufa rock, with its deep, soft surfaces hardened by the sun. Yet the land that we now stand upon seems very different from those confident examples.
In this drawing I wanted to express the feeling that the earth is insecure. The surface seems almost hollow, trembling. That feeling was the start of the Grove project. Living on that surface I asked the questions: “If we will live together, who are we? Are there many kinds of beings that can live together with us?”. My little sketch drew groups of different beings: some old, some young, some able bodies, some less able. It includes small and large, and fragile individuals alongside proud leaders. The drawing shows groups of beings asking the question: “Can we live together?” This kind of gathering is both hesitant and strong at the same time: hesitant because this group do not come from one nation or one family or one company, and also strong, because the gathering of multiple different kinds of species and humanities seem intense and fertile.
In my drawing, reaching far overhead, above this trembling ground and the gathering of people, there is a radiant lace-work of clouds, creating canopies, and shells, and nests, and webs. This offers a kind of gentle architecture. It offers a common song of hope.
That was the sketch of what we hoped we would be able to offer in the installation. The work was titled Grove, like the opening in a wild forest, where we could gather in peace, a foundation place of a city. This might remind us of legendary beginnings of historical cities. Perhaps this ‘grove’ might even feel like a temple, opening us to powers that lie far beyond us. Whether large or small, this architecture acts as the most gentle gathering place.
We live in urgent times. We need so much hope!

The gentle architecture after the pandemic

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Maddalena Mometti: How has the current international situation of the last two years and the related constraints affected the creative process?
Philip Beesley: At the beginning, before the pandemic, the project was based on a deeply physical gathering place. We conceived a radiant spring opening inside a forest, evoking original growth where the first city gathers. A full range of mechanisms and architectural components were developed to build that vision. We tried to consider dimensions far behind human domains enriched with living beings of all kinds and the emergence of life, and minerals and elemental material as well. We were thinking about whispering songs and distributing sounds and gentle movements: the experience of a new kind of artificial life interweaving with natural life. New flexible skeleton scaffolds, basket-like columns and shells, and new meshworks of microprocessors were all prototyped and launched toward mass manufacturing. We started working very hard, more than two years ago , building up this physical paradise- garden.
And then everything changed with the pandemic. For a while we thought it would be impossible to recover. We were forced to close down. Like so many others, we said: “We are so sorry, it is impossible!” But Hashim Sarkis and his group encouraged us to renew things and to find a way to continue. So, we tried to change. Instead of a completely physical work, we thought about a layered and open system, not depending so much on epic scales and major resources. We conceived a lace-like open cloud that could spread and nourish while at the same time consuming only the lightest, most minimal resources. We imagined offering an architecture transformed into a gentle air filled instrument, full of light and shadow and sound. That led us to conceive of making a film, translating as much as possible from the physical design that we had intended to build and recreating it within a virtual world.

The film: a dialogue between Architecture, Design & Fashion!

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Maddalena Mometti: This is the first time you translate your work into a film… is it correct? Tell us your experience, please!
Philip Beesley: Yes, this is our first major work in film. With the renewed vision of working with these immaterial, energy-filled dimensions, we reached out to four collaborators– the brilliant film-makers Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton-Jones, the sound-composer Salvador Breed, and couture artist Iris van Herpen. With Warren and Nick, we took the deeply interwoven component patterns that had been intended for physical fabrication, and we translated those into projected digital animations, rigged and animated within comprehensive virtual world. With Salvador, we conceived of vast fields of sound, using multitudes of individual small speakers that could carry intimate whispers while also growing into thundering storms. Conversations with Iris revolved around the emergence of a child-like being who might live within interwoven membranes floating within the space of Grove.
Combining all of those conversations, we created the film together. We worked on some new softwares that allowed us to translate the massed arrays of intricate architectural components into animated fabrics that shift and flex, and that could carry transparent liquids and crystalline light. We engineered a new kind of speaker that could radiate sound all around it, and tuned it so that it could carry a wide spectrum of frequencies. We designed a floor surface with a hollow that could receive the projected film, giving the experience of looking into a deep pool carved into the ground.
As soon as the film started to emerge, we discovered just how potent that new medium could be for us. It allowed us to go further in emotional dimensions than we’ve every gone before. It seemed to allow us to touch joy, all the while building up new crystalline worlds. We traced the story of a child in birth. That in turn allowed us to embrace suffering as well, and eventually we also embraced almost unspeakable loss. All of those dimensions can, I think, be seen within the film.
It impressed me very much how closely architecture and industrial design and the world of film and fashion too can come together. A kind of new possibility-space where forms and visual gestures, sound and video all work together.

Maddalena Mometti: And it is a good metaphor of our times! Above all in these two years we perceived that digital is very physical for us in some way! During the lockdown period digital meetings were the only contact with other people! And we really needed this kind of relationship!
Philip Beesley: That makes me think of a realization that comes from the reality of the last couple of years in which on one hand we can say that everything is virtual, the weaving of all the possibilities is projected onto the potential of virtual media, a complete world. On the other hand those digital forms are of course profoundly physical. I love the sense that these things are in fact one. It is a false opposition. Ideas are actions. Actions are ideas. In Nature opposite dimensions constantly arise together.

Maddalena Mometti: Let’s talk about the film in detail! It was very surprising to me and very captivating! In some moments I had the impression of being a spectator, in others I had the feeling of being the human protagonist myself and thus having a subjective view…
Philip Beesley: Yes, the vision inside this film does invite you to feel like you are inside it, and even that you are dreaming of the world that you are seeing. In the first part of the film you can see emptiness and distance, then slowly you get closer and more deeply involved. You might feel that you are breathing and evolving. There is a sense of being embraced. Then, suddenly, you are flung back into a terribly alienating space, as if an unthinkably large explosion has happened and you are left with the terrible aftermath. Small flickers of motion arise again, and slowly build, and you find yourself deeply immersed again. Those cycles continue, with increasing intensity. When I watch the film I find it both very encouraging and also frightening and disorienting.
I am encouraged by the possibility of offering people an experience that can be glacially slow and also sharing an intense energy. Salvador has woven together a tissue of sounds that accompany this immersive world.Some of the sounds are alien and artificial, utterly cold. In some other parts of the film the atmosphere is welcoming, and joyful.

A new kind of human being?

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Maddalena Mometti: In the film is there a sort of projection of a new kind of human being?
Philip Beesley: Yes. The film attempts to create a kind of new myth of the origins of life. Within that new myth, a new child is offered. Perhaps this child is a new kind of human being with the body of a cyborg whose body contains densely interwoven artificial and natural parts, living intertwined within both nature and technology. The film builds on that vision. For parts of the film, a child can be seen, within the space of a nest, deep within layered meshworks. Within those parts, the sculptural forms seem fertile, like nests surrounded by lush soil. We can see the child stirring, gently touching and reaching.
The sound that accompanies this film includes spoken texts from the nineteenth-century French author Gustave Flaubert’s Temptations of Saint Anthony. That author inspired a generation of surrealist artists who followed him, and I have returned to him again and again for inspiration within my own work. The Temptations evoke tribulations that overwhelm the Saint in tumbling nightmares. It then moves into lovely passages where the Saint feels united with rocks, minerals and plants. That metamorphosis is a gift of life from death. For me, the child within the film embodies that transition. That’s what we want to offer with Grove in this intensely strained time: a gift of life from death.
Let me say a little more about some fundamental ideas within this project. Some old myths suggest that life is always separated from technology. Within that way of looking at the world, the myriad forms of non-human living plants and organisms somehow carry tangled disorganization and disease, while the inert minerals and pure elements might seem like better and stronger building materials that allow us to control and clear the world, making it safe. Lifeless minerals might be for tools and for making the walls and floors of architecture, with nature kept safely outside and under control. I think this idea is present in many parts of our culture. I think that separation has created deeply harmful conditions in the world.
However, I don’t believe that separation is necessary. I love the sense that we could look very carefully and slowly at a rock and ask, in all seriousness: ”Is it alive?” In some remote parts of our culture, the answer could be ‘yes’. The ancient Greek principle of hylozoism suggested that. Hylozoism means ‘life from material’. That concept is one of the bases for the construction of the film- the sense that it is not necessary to have a strong separation between you and a rock or a tool.
I tried to express that idea by presenting primary elements, organized in harmonic arrays. Waves of energy transform them into new kinds of material. They make chains and bundles. Metabolic reactions rise up and transform them again. The crystalline structures of those forms attract new materials and organize them, acting like templates. Information emerges, coded within their structures, carrying the patterns for composing those bundles and groups. Chains and membranes roll and curl, making rippled surfaces. They react and exchange. Hollows emerge, and curl in on themselves. Curling membranes connect into vessels and nests. There are waves that ripple out ahead and backward from those actions, creating kinds of projection and memory. Perhaps even consciousness emerges within those ripples of reaction.
Within the thickets of sculpture that surrounds the child’s body, resplendent life flows out, budding and swelling with innumerable plant and flower-like forms. Clouds roll far above, suggesting that this landscape might continue into multiple worlds. Within other parts of the film, we witness a desert-like plain that takes over the landscape. Shattered forms speak of intense forces that have swept over the land, obliterating almost all living forms. The child also appears momentarily within those sections. We witness them buried, in death, in a vision of sacrifice where they might be transforming into soil. Those transitions continue with life succeeding death and subsiding again in multiple cycles.
This is a potentially valuable message, I think. We are not alone. Our actions ripple out and touch everything. Everything around us touches us. The story of the film is based on that.

The physical installation

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Maddalena Mometti: What about the materials of installation?
Philip Beesley: I hope the qualities I’ve been describing might also be seen in some of the physical craft of making Grove. I think you can see that at work in the canopy, made with lightweight and resilient polymer sheets. That can also be seen in the thicket of standing speakers that surround the viewer, with each printed shell floating in a delicate basket of stretched metal. Those forms attempt to be sensitive, offering intimacy.
The main fabric that we can see in Grove is a large suspended fabric made from PETG polymers, while the speaker shells seen within the standing columns are printed from synthetic material, made from a bioplastic based on plant sugar. The fabric is cut using a laser, using carefully-developed patterns that attempt to form reactive frond-like forms that can be stirred into action with only the slightest of touches.

Maddalena Mometti: Did you create these polymers (above all the bioplastic) especially for Grove or did you already work before with them?
Philip Beesley: Some materials are traditional, some of them are new. Polyactic Acid (PLA) printing filaments have now entered wide use, thankfully. We are trying to improve the materials we use. We are still searching for a bioplastic sheet that can be flexible enough to handle wide twisting and bending forces while also staying transparent. We aren’t close enough to that goal, but it seems that progress is being made. For now, we are continuing to use recyclable PETG polymer sheet, while we search for replacements that come closer to fully circular design standards where all material can be reused, with minimum carbon impact in the world. One of ways we have made strong progress is in using a radical minimum amount of material by using very thin sheets.
We work with compliant force-shedding design. We try not to resist forces. Instead, we are working to create something as flexible and resilient as possible. This way, the systems can handle wide environmental changes. When I was learning architecture I was taught to build things in the opposite way, following the Roman writer Vitruvius’s philosophy of making strong things, built to last: “First of all firmitas!” My new work, however, tends to oppose that view. I do not believe we need more walls today. I believe that as architects we need to conceive open, deliberately flexible and ephemeral systems.

Maddalena Mometti: How about the name Grove?
Philip Beesley: I love the word grove, because it means a place of presence and a place of opening in a kind of wildness, embracing the surrounding space. The idea of a grove is a fundamental gathering place. It offers an opening, a fundamental emplacement. This is not an act where we claim territory. The opening invites gathering, and speaks of the deep tradition of democracy.
I think a new space for democracy needs new kinds of space. To me, it is motivating to hear the voices of new physicists encouraging us to consider new conceptions: rather than describing space fundamentally empty, with individual atoms dancing like infinitesimally small spheres, surrounded by void, I think I am now encouraged to see a possibility of mass arising everywhere. In the quantum realities that are now being confirmed by the amazing experiments of the CERN instruments, it even the birth of mass itself could be seen as a kind of fundamental particle, the Higgs boson. If mass can arise everywhere, then space is full, not empty. Encouraged by this, I am tending to use new terms as well. I think we could use the mediaeval word aether instead of the rather cold and somehow polarizing word space. I love the sheer fertility and potent fullness that aether evokes. Grove embodies that kind of gathering space.

The mechanical empathy
of responsive buildings

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Maddalena Mometti: I read the press release: your installation was described using the word empathy. How can this kind of empathy be put into architecture projects of real buildings and cities?
Philip Beesley: I am optimistic about the possibility of responsive buildings offering a precise kind of mechanical empathy that might help renew what architecture can be. Empathy can be felt when a person sees that their own thoughts and feelings are being fundamentally ‘heard’ and integrated by others. Empathy could also be expressed by mechanisms and buildings, where those systems sense what humans are expressing and respond to those expressions. Perhaps some examples of that are now ordinary: we take for granted that a shopping-mall door will open before us when we walk toward it. That ordinary example might suggest that mechanical empathy is a viable technical craft, but I should acknowledge that it is also full of problems. It can also imply that we are not free. An active mechanism can even become a monster that can hurt us. So, the power of this way of working is large. However, if we look more closely at scaffolds and information together, it seems possible to make architectural fabrics that are very senstive in their mechanisms. Rather than simply pushing and pulling, manipulating things with maximum power, they can resonate and harmonize the forces that pass through. With computational controls, we can orchestrate ‘learning’ functions that help the work to act sensitively. So this kind of work becomes empathic, hearing what you say, moving with you, anticipating what you are going to do and in some way shifting and dancing with you. We need to work to make building sensitive, learning from human empathy.

Maddalena Mometti:A beautiful vision!

About Venice

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Maddalena Mometti:My last question: which is your personal relationship with the city of Venice? Is there a connection between this city and Grove?
Philip Beesley: Grove is conceived to work precisely with the Arsenale, casting shadows and echoing within that extraordinary and vast space. Its canopy projects clouds that float in the imagination out amidst the canals and walkways of Venice. The ground of Venice has so many kind of histories into it. By spending extended time on that ground my body becomes touched by a certain way of walking and being. The floating city is of course a place of dream, a place that concentrates urban space, ground, water. The sun rises and sets on the great lagoon. The water is moving all around you. This experience of moving up and down against a surface of water, in and out, produces the most delicious sense of immersion. In that space it is possible to experience qualities of amphibian beings. It is the space of dreams for me. The most vivid dreams happen when I sleep in Venice. Its haunted sounds and whispering echoes are eternal. Venice is irreplaceable.

>>> Go to the interview with Sascha Hastings!

Other posts on new fashion scenarios:

>>> The journey of a work of art from Toronto to Venice Interview with Sascha Hastings

>>> Fashion is design Il ritorno della Moda con la “M” maiuscola a Venezia

>>> Fashion and Science

>>> Digital Glamour: when fashion opens up new worlds “Digital as the fifth element, in addition to air, water, earth and fire” by Chic Words

>>> Green Carpet Fashion Awards 2020 “What we wear speaks to who we are and what be believe in” Robert Downey

 
 
 
 
IMAGES
All photos are courtesy of Philip beesley and Sascha Hastings.
Starting from the top:
[image 1] Screenshot of Grove Cradle film

[images 2,3,4] Preparatory sketches for the Grove installation by Philip Beesley

[images 5,6,7,8,9] Screenshot of Grove Cradle film

[images 10,11,12] Grove installation photos

[immagine 13] Chic Words visiting the Grove installation

Fashion is design. Fashion is culture, creation, study, choice of materials, analysis, construction and storytelling. However, all too often this is forgotten, distracted by gossip and the context that revolves around the world of fashion.

Chic Words project was born with the aim of both telling about a new fashion (l’ >>> High-Tech Fashion) and telling about fashion in a different way (i.e. in a way similar to the way design is told, considering all the aspects, phases and scientific and cultural elements that lead to the final project). To do this I chose Venice as a starting point, a unique and fragile fashion capital, a city distant from the dynamics of the traditional Fashion System, precisely because it is a city with peculiarities that require us to rethink all the conventions and ways of experiencing the urban context. And that living and observing it for years as a design student, then as a researcher and professional, has taught me to look at things differently.
So I was really excited when I learned that Pierpaolo Piccioli, designer of the Maison Valentino, had chosen my beloved lagoon city as the setting for his fashion show, and even more so after attending the event.

Venezia
as a starting point
for telling a new fashion in a new way

The pandemic of the 2020-2021 period has severely challenged the fashion system, and in particular the events sector, forcing us to rethink the way in which we present new collections to the public and pushing a digital transformation that was previously always kept on the sidelines. The forced advent of online events, however, has had the positive aspect of prompting reflection on the objectives of fashion shows and offering the possibility for a greater number of people to be able to follow the fashion shows in streaming, with a view to greater inclusiveness, as well as having completely disrupted the fashion calendar, opening up the possibility for maisons to organise themselves independently and surprise the public with customised formats.

Making people more involved and allowing them to document the shows live gives them a greater awareness of the work behind a collection and encourages them to formulate their own opinion.

The crisis has brought another positive aspect: a reflection by the fashion world on the dynamics of consumption and the importance of returning to the creation of valuable pieces destined to last. Fashion, which has always shared many aspects with the practice of design – and as I have always liked to consider it – was distant from it in its more ephemeral manifestations – designed to ride on momentary trends – bringing it closer to the dynamics and times of communication. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that even design, forgetting its fundamental principles, began to look at fashion with interest and – in some cases – to behave like fashion!

Valentino Des Ateliers fashion show

Valentino Des Ateliers fashion show (which you can see >>> here) represents a return in grand style to Fashion with a capital “M”. Fashion that is dream, project and art, contemporary but also beyond time. Just like the city of Venice, which always manages to offer new emotions.

Imagine a stretch of water at sunset, framed by a small courtyard of historic buildings and “two imposing aquatic canopies built between 1568 and 1573 in the Darsena Novissima and used to shelter rowing galleys that did not need trees”, these are the Gaggiandre of the Venice Arsenal where, on 16 July 2021, floating dresses paraded suspended between water and sky, amidst reflections of light and reverberations of the lagoon. A collection suspended in a perfect balance between art and design that reinterprets iconic shapes of the maison with vibrant and saturated colours.

Pierpaolo Piccioli, designed the collection in collaboration with 17 contemporary artists, mostly painters, selected together with Gianluigi Recuperati. Piccioli dialogued with them to internalise and rework their respective poetics. Bringing together the fashion atelier and the art atelier, he gave life and three-dimensionality to the pictorial works. “Venice was part of the vision I had from the beginning. It was the only place in the world in which to present such a collection, a context in which nothing could be added or taken away,” said the designer. The lagoon city has a long tradition of linking art and fashion from the days of the Serenissima to Peggy Guggenheim’s circle. (And we will re-discover it together on these pages in future articles!)
The fashion show also arrives at the Arsenale immediately after the G20 Economy in a symbolic dialogue on the climate of recovery and return to the fundamental themes for society, a return to the essence.

 
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The artists involved in the Valentino Des Ateliers collection project are: Joel S. Allen, Anastasia Bay, Benni Bosetto, Katrin Bremermann, Guglielmo Castelli, Maurizio Cilli, Danilo Correale, Luca Coser, Jamie Nares, Francis Offman, Andrea Respino, Wu Rui, Sofia Silva, Alessandro Teoldi, Patricia Treib, Malte Zenses and Kerstin Bratsch.

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More gems about new ways to do fashion:

>>> Digital Glamour: when fashion opens up new worlds “Digital as the fifth element, in addition to air, water, earth and fire” by Chic Words

>>> Green Carpet Fashion Awards 2020 “What we wear speaks to who we are and what be believe in” Robert Downey

>>> Aquafil: a company where the economy is truly circular PAY ATTENTION: Aquafil is one of the sponsors of the Green Carpet Fashion Awards! We love it!

>>> Ananas for your ecoglamour

>>> Ecoalf: rethinking fashion business models

>>> Carry Somers’ revolution

 
 
 
 
IMAGES
All photos were taken by Maddalena Mometti during her visit to the Gaggiandre, Venice.

During the last months I have been forced away from my favorite city for professional tasks. However, I followed with trepidation the news related to the extraordinary high water that has registered last year and I could not wait to return to meet Mrs Lagoon in its new-found splendor.

An unexpected collaboration proposal for an artistic project received by e-mail was the right opportunity to cancel all my tasks and return to visit the streets that I missed so much. I met a very special woman with whom I spent a very pleasant morning looking for the perfect bar to have a cup of tea, discussing contemporary art mixing English and Italian with the scent of tea, inside a handmade ceramic cup.

Venetian atmosphere of these days is truly unprecedented, Mrs Lagoon’s living rooms are recomposed within the banks and daily life started again, but the influx of people is less than in previous years. The city seems suspended, as when a big party is being prepared for important guests, everything is ready, but the guests are late. The Carnival is about to explode and I ma ìconvinced that in 2020 it will have got even more vivid festive colors.

A walk
to taste places I missed

I took a ride to review places that I had not savored for a few weeks, looking for the perfect shot to describe this new Venetian trait still unknown to me.

Another small fragility
that I never thought of

The sight of Christmas lights still hanging between the houses and the doors of the churches, the texture of salt on the steps of the bridges, the mirror reflection of an entrance window of a hotel to reveal the emotions that I did not realize I was feeling, the reassuring noise of the boots on the stone and then clack … “Clack?” “I didn’t remember such a crumbly floor …” – I immediately thought and then I looked better on the ground with the help of the camera. “Damn, here is another little fragility I never thought of.” Here I present a shot of what I saw and I invite you to guess what I found.

Another clue…

Just a few days later, in front of a new cup of tea, in a bar in Padua, I surprised myself observing the finishes of the aseptic industrially made cup, I thought about the beautiful cups that are found in my favorite Venetian places, abut my colleague with whom we share the good practice of enjoying teas for lunch … and I realized how much I missed the feeling and beauty inside every single object that I could experience in my favorite city. Here is a good intention for 2020: to tell my new Paduan friends about the sensory experience of a small moment of daily life in Venice!

 
 
Images of Venice by Maddalena Mometti.

Summer: time for starry nights, time for outdoor dances with light clothes, but above all time for perfumes.

What could be more sensual and seductive than a perfume? Coco Chanel stated that “a woman should wear perfume wherever she wants to be kissed”. [Foonote 1]

The link between French fashion and perfume is a known story, the one that is surprising and little known is the relationship between Venice and the art of perfume!

One of the main elements of the style that make an outfit extraordinary and unique is certainly the scent. The choice of a fragrance that represents us is a very difficult choice because it requires taking into account many factors: the emotions that arouse in us the olfactory notes, the image we want to convey to others, our ability to wear and interpret essences, the interaction of perfume with our skin and our ability to evaluate the variations of notes during the olfactory experience.

What is surprising and little known
is the relationship between Venice and the art of perfume!

To learn the secrets of Lady Lagoon about the art of perfume, some days ago I did one of my periodic visits to Palazzo Mocenigo.[Footnote 2] Among the Venetian palaces it is one of my favorites because it really represents a small jewel of elegance and refinement. Located in the Santa Croce district, it is 10 minutes walk from the train station, in a central position but far from the frenzy of the most famous tourist routes. An oasis of peace and glamor, reachable passing through Campo S. Giacomo dall’Orio.

Entering Palazzo Mocenigo, is a dive in the life of the Venetian patriciate between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, because several rooms retain the furnishings and objects of the time. One of the rooms in which I like to spend time imagining the life of Venetian nobles is the dining room. A wooden table in the center, covered with a very refined Burano lace needlework tablecloth, is set at the top with glass dishes. The dimensions of the table make the atmosphere very intimate and suspended.

An oasis of peace and glamor!

But the most excting section is the one dedicated to the history of perfume. This section was included in the museum in 2013, strongly desired by Mavive (a Venetian company belonging to the Vidal group). This exhibition itinerary was inaugurated after the museum reopened following a three-year restoration and, at that time, I immediately fell in love with it.[Footnote 3]

The practice of perfuming is introduced in Venice by Teodora Ducas, daughter of the emperor of Byzantium, who in 1060 married the Doge Domenico Servo. With this highly refined princess, the art of cosmetics and Venetian perfume she started.

In 1271 Marco Polo, returning from his trip to China, introduced several oriental cultural elements in Venice, including the care of the body and the fragrance of musk.

Venezia,
birthplace of soap and perfume!

The sixteenth century in Venice can be described as “the century of cosmetics”. Furthermore, in the same period in Venice the soap was invented and the Venetian “saoneri” gave birth to a very flourishing industry. Still in Venice, particular techniques are developed for the realization of perfumes, as evidenced by the precious cosmetic manual I Notandissimi secreti de l’Arte Profumatoria (G. Rossetti, Venice, 1555), the first western recipe book for cosmetics which is kept in the Museum of Palazzo Mocenigo..

A must-try experience is a visit to the experiential room dedicated to the raw materials for perfume (some of which are very rare): elegant glass bottles are arranged on top of a fine wooden table closed by a flower-shaped lid, grouped by olfactory families. Invited by the museum staff (very kind and really nice) I spent a lot of time experimenting and comparing the essences, imagining the Venetian ladies who could have worn them. A magical experience.

This sensory experience has its fulfillment and connection with the contemporary in the room dedicated to the fragrances of The Merchant of Venice, a Venetian brand born in 2013, created by the Vidal group, whose first collection comes onto the market the following year. I had already noticed this brand with interest thanks to the single-brand store located not far from Teatro La Fenice, but discovering its relationship with the Venetian culture and the museum was really a pleasure.

P.S. if you want to know how my passion for Palazzo Mocenigo came about, I suggest you read these posts:

>>> Chic Words at Venice Design Week 2017
The smart textiles exhibition

>>> Chic Words at Venice Design Week 2016
The link between High-Tech Fashion and Veneziatian Glamour

FOOTNOTES

[1] Inside Chanel Chapter 1, in-depth study of the history of the maison. http://inside.chanel.com/it/no5/video

[2] Palazzo Mocenigo, headquarters of Study Centre of the History of Textiles, Costumes and Perfume of Venice. https://mocenigo.visitmuve.it

[3] Website Mavive company, last accessed on August 12 2019. http://www.mavive.it

IMAGES

[image 1] Illustration created by Maddalena Mometti

[image 2] Illustration created by da Maddalena Mometti

I have long been undecided about which photography to use as the cover of this new-born year. I wanted something absolutely elegant and representative of the new perspectives for the future that every beginning brings with it, but without betraying the essence of the city that is scenery for Chic Words.
So I started to review all the shots I had made in recent months and I had not yet shown you.

I was attracted by an image of the Calle di Santa Croce, seen from S. Lucia Station, where a precious lace of mist covered the dome of S. Simeone Piccolo Church.

How could I not have mentioned him so far among these digital pages? Mr. Nebbia, with its unmistakable style, was born in Venice, but loves to frequent circles of creative Londoners and Americans, but always maintaining his own way of being completely personal. And if you pay attention, you may often hear him sing a verse from his favorite song: “It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile. Be yourself no matter what they say … “

A precious lace of mist
covered the dome of S. Simeone Piccolo Church

Mr. Nebbia contributes enormously to the >>> Venetian Glamour, going to create one of the many nuances of the Venetian White and to enrich with mystery the >>> Venetian Diaphanous. In the winter days, when walking through the streets, even for those in love with Venice like me, becomes an effort of will and determination, his ability of transformation that he knows how to apply to the living rooms of Mrs. Laguna is an irresistible push to go out and find out which new effect or choreography he put in place.

There are occasions in which he poses only a light sugar veil over the lagoon waters, others ones in which he tries to create walls of vaporous ice to indicate new paths to follow, other times he builds iridescent infrastructures to amuse the boatmen … If you want create a really special event in Venice, he is absolutely your man!

Happy 2019 to all Smart & Chic Souls! And let it be a 2019 colored by Venetian White!

Post correlati

>>> Venetian Diaphanous
This post explains what Venetian Diaphanous is and how it can be experienced.

>>> Venetian Glamour Section
Visit this section to read all the posts on Venetian Glamour and fashion lifestyle in Venice.

 
 
Images of Venice by Maddalena Mometti. Last image at the bottom: Google Maps screenshot.

Today I present you new images revealing the Underground Venice and highlighting some new features. In the previous post I showed you how industrial or typical elements of the urban landscape of metropolitan cities (such as a telephone booth) can also be seen in our liquid city, giving rise to landscapes sometimes surreal.

For those who had been distracted the post with which I introduced the concept of Underground Venice can be found at this link: >>>Underground Venice.

The importance of communication ethics
and visual composition ethics in an urban context

These shots depict street style interventions on the facades of buildings or on the walls of construction sites. Venice, as you know, is an open-air museum so going to intervene on any surface risks destroying centuries of history, but Venice is a city with inhabitants, visitors, passers-by, workers … a city that has its own life and therefore also here it happens that someone decides to leave the sign of his passage.

It would be nice, however, to be able to regulate the distribution of authorized billboards, enhancing both the graphics of contemporary posters and preserving the preexisting beauty, or to establish a kind of communication ethics, and ethics of visual composition. Do you agree?

Is not the drape that hides the scaffolding of certain buildings (like the one in the picture below) almost poetic? With its lightness, precariousness and signs of deterioration, in this specific foreshortening, it is much more harmonious than a well-tended and hyper-decorated one.

All the photographs in this post were made by Maddalena Mometti.

Transmitting the essence of Venice through the digital square meter of Chic Words is a task that gives me a feeling of pleasure and serenity. In fact, it allows me to take snapshots of thoughts that in recent years have crossed my mind several times like lightning appearances, and then dissolved like clouds in the wind of real contingencies, that bring me back to reality situations, like the ringing of a phone, the risk of falling along a bridge or the flight of a seagull.

Looking at the collection of shots of non-conventional Venetian sunsets that I began to show you a few days ago: >>> Unconventional Venetian sunsets, I tried to understand what was the common feeling of beauty that those visions had aroused in my mind, pushing me to take those photographs. Reading again that article, I realized how these images are different from hyperdefinite snapshots, hypernitide and often even the hypersature of colors ones, which cross social networks. With the improvement of the technology of smart phones and digital cameras and also of increasingly performing digital screens through which we observe pictures, what we are loosing is the wonder of the blurred, of imperfection, of the depth of translucent transparencies, or of the emotional richness of Venetian Diaphanous

One of the traits of the essence of Venice
is Venetian Diaphanous

Observing the city through overlapping layers characterized by textures and by visual, sound or emotional noise becomes a way to portray the perspective and the journey that the light of the landscape takes before arriving at the photographic tool, giving us traces of the history of this path. And looking for the definition of diaphanous I discovered how in many ways this concept also represents myself, as you can read here: >>> definition of diaphanous from Italian dictionary.

Who has the “luck” of having me as a travel companion in trains to and from Venice recognizes me because (I have to say rather strangely) I am usually the only person in the wagon that observes this natural spectacle carefully and decides to portray it despite the difficulties due to the passage of other trains, buses or even other passengers, who tend to stand in front of the camera in the moments less indicated … However, in years of training I acquired a certain skill in dodging these obstacles and at the same time do not lose my balance nor my luggage!

As I sat quiet again in my place, among the sighs of relief of the other passengers. I said to myself: “This is not the most appropriate way of photographing this show …” And I spent the rest of the trip thinking about this topic between myself and me.

“The sunset is a romantic setting, which requires calm, meditation, relaxation … maybe even someone to share it with … no! This is just one of the ways to consider the sunset, due precisely to the visual culture infesting the postcards of Venice! In my mission to present an unconventional storytelling I can and must grant myself poetic (and visual) licenses and push to observe the phenomenon from multiple perspectives. Even that of a frenetic designer and blogger who, in her race between one commitment and another, does not give up observing the beauty that surrounds her in the most unexpected moments!”

Which is your special,
unconventional moment dedicated to Venetian sunsets?

IMAGES

All the photographs on this page have been taken by Maddalena Mometti.

The day before yesterday during one of my daily walks I visited a lounge of the art of Mrs. Lagoon, which I did not know: Ca’ Foscari Esposizioni and I was really struck by the beauty of the location and the happy marriage between the place and the works presented. On the right of the courtyard of Palazzo Ca’ Giustinian dei Vescovi (headquarter of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) you can access an area that hosts prestigious exhibitions by contemporary artists and researchers.

An ethical and aesthetic reflection
on the power and poetics of renewable energy

The exhibition rooms are developed in a small open-air courtyard and several covered areas, spread over 800 square meters between the ground floor and the first floor. Connected by a monumental main stair, these spaces overlook the Grand Canal, opening unexpected views over the water. This particular creates an ideal connection with the themes of the exhibition currently housed in the building. Bill Fontana’s Primal Sonic Vision is made up of a series of multimedia installations, which strongly and aesthetically describe the primordial energy resources: wind, hydroelectric, solar and geothermal, capturing flickers, reflections, colors and sounds.
[Note 1]

According to the artist’s intentions, the exhibition aims to be a reflection on the great resources that renewable energy can provide to our planet, through the creation of an emotional relationship with the visitor; which is immersed in a visual and sound architecture obtained through the fusion between digital video and architecture.
The images and sounds of the exhibition are the result of a journey undertaken by the artist, commissioned by the International Agency for Renewable Energy (ARENA), at a series of power generation plants in Italy, Austria, Portugal, California, Iceland, Portugal, United Arab Emirates and England.

The experience already begins in the small courtyard from which it is possible to begin to perceive the mysterious sounds coming from the first exhibition hall. Behind a glass door opens a space in dim light, from which emerge the images of some wind turbines projected on the ceiling, like windows on another space-time dimension. From the back of the room the outside light filters through the water door overlooking the Grand Canal. “I made these works by listening to the first visual and auditory impressions aroused by these sites. My intent was not to document them, but to capture their abstract sensory magic “- these are the words, reported in the exhibition brochure, with which Bill Fontana describes his work.

The magic of the first room is also due to the fact that the sound of the sharp blades of the wind turbines (visible through the digital projections) mixes with the voice of the emitted lagoon captured by two hydrophones, so that one gets the impression of being completely enveloped in the natural elements: wind and water.

Bill Fontanta’s exhibition, with its elegance and delicacy, represents both a way of drawing attention to the problems of environmental sustainability and the need to encourage the use of renewable energy, with particular reference to Venice. According to a calm and focused style in suggesting solutions, rather than expressing polemical judgments, a constructive and loving look is set up on the problem.

The voice of Mrs. Laguna, soft and soothing, is also taken in one of the rooms on the first floor where two multimedia works are reproduced obtained from the recordings of the swirl of the waves and the noises related to the area where the MOSE is located, the bulkhead system which allows to stem the phenomenon of high tides in the Venice Lagoon. These two installations are particularly interesting because they present a close and privileged point of view on a work long debated in the Venetian environments, which in the common imagery was always connected to a heavy, mechanical and invasive human intervention on the environment, and instead from this perspective it reveals how nature is starting to interact and coexist in a gradual and spontaneous way, giving it a more delicate dignity and a sense of affection for the surrounding ecosystem. The artist is planning to make a live work of art on MOSE in the near future and I confess that I am really looking forward to seeing it. I have not yet formulated my opinion about the MOSE project and know the thought on the topic of great contemporary artists and thinkers, I think I can open the debate to interesting perspectives and push us to better understand the function of the project and its meaning for our city.

Exhibition’s details

Titolo: Primal Sonic Vision

organized by Arthemisia
in partnership with Venice Science Gallery
with the support of: United Arabe Emirates Ministry of Climate Change & Environment, Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari

Location: Ca’ Foscari Esposizioni
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Dorsoduro 3246

Opening hours: from May 26th to September 16th 2018
from 10.00 to 18.00 (excluding Mondays)
free entrance

 
 
NOTES

[1] Bill Fontana is a contemporary American composer and multimedia artist, known for his experiments on the frontier with sound.

 
 
IMAGES

The images are published by kind permission of the Arthemisia Press Office and are taken from the press Kit of the exhibition.

Starting from above.
[picture 1 and preview image] Bill Fontana Tuscan Geothermal Landscape

[picture 2] Bill Fontana Hydroelectric Outflow California

[picture 3] Bill Fontana Portuguese Hydroelectirc Landscape Portugal