LUX 04: The Movement of People Working – Phill Niblock

July 28th – August 31th 2023

Museolaboratorio ex manifattura tabacchi

Artist
Phill Niblock
Katherine Liberovskaya
Davide Capobianco

Opening and meeting with the artist, July 28th – 19.00
Performance, Niblock, Liberovskaya, Bosco, Campitelli, Capobianco, July 29th – 22.00

LUX 04. After nearly five years, the Museolaboratorio Ex Manifattura Tabacchi returns to engage with contemporary music, exploring the physical nature and spatial density of acoustic matter, while reflecting on the dialogue between the repetition of moving images and sound.

Following the monographic exhibitions dedicated to William Basinski and James Elaine (2014), Thomas Köner (2016), and Arnold Dreyblatt (2018), the Abruzzo museum hosts Phill Niblock, accompanied by Katherine Liberovskaya, as a historical witness to the interaction between film and minimalist music. A living legend, Niblock shapes his language with a grammar as radical and essential as it is lucid and progressive, capable of confronting and overcoming the challenges of “time.”

The Movement of People Working. Niblock returns to Italy to present one of his most layered and structured multimedia works, The Movement of People Working, in a version specially designed for the Museolaboratorio. The installation consists of a selection of three of his historical experimental films (China, Hong Kong, Japan) in dialogue with a sound architecture composed of drones and long notes. The juxtaposition and repetition of the movements of workers, captured in their historical-cultural or rural environment, create inexorable dynamics, emphasizing the ever-changing and organic progression of perceptual flow. An audiovisual “sculpture” in “phase” and “counter-phase,” reflecting on the friction between mutability and continuity, where the genesis of each event is only a temporary phenomenon absorbed by the relentless nature of time.

The “two-day” presentation culminates in the performance on Saturday, July 29, a moment when Niblock, Liberovskaya, and collaborators will lead the audience into a deep yet concrete audiovisual immersion.

Phill Niblock is an intermedia artist using music, film, photography, video and computers. He was born in Indiana in 1933. Since the mid-60’s he has been making music and intermedia performances which have been shown at numerous venues around the world. Since 1985, he has been the director of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York – experimentalintermedia.org – where he has been an artist/member since 1968. He is the producer of Music and Intermedia presentations at EI since 1973 and the curator of EI’s XI Records label. Phill Niblock’s music is available on the XI, Moikai, Mode, Matiere Memoire, Room 40, and Touch labels. DVDs of films and music are available on the Extreme label and Von Archive. He is a retired professor of film, video and photography at The College of Staten Island, the City University of New York. In 2014, he was the recipient of the prestigious John Cage Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Katherine Liberovskaya is a Canadian intermedia artist based in New York City. Involved in experimental video since the 80s, she has produced numerous single-channel video art pieces, video installations and video performances, as well as works in other media, that have been shown around the world. Since 2001 her work predominantly focuses on the intersection of moving image with sound/music in various both ephemeral and fixed forms (projections, installations, performances), notably through collaborations with composers and sound artists in improvised live video+sound concert situations where her live visuals seek to create improvisatory “music” for the eyes. In addition to her art work she curates events in experimental video/film, sound/music and A/V performance (primarily Screen Compositions since 2005 and OptoSonic Tea since 2006). In 2014 she completed a PhD in art practice entitled “Improvisatory Live Visuals: Playing Images Like a Musical Instrument” at the Universite du Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).

Davide Capobianco, an Italian composer, specializes in contemporary concert and electroacoustic music for solo performers and ensembles. His compositions delve into themes related to the human experience, continuously exploring new musical horizons to convey compelling narratives.

LUX 04: The Movement of People Working – Phill Niblock

Curated by
LUX

Coordinated by
Enzo De Leonibus

Collaborators
Tonino Bosco
Marco Campitelli
Davide Capobianco
Daniele Cilli
Marco De Leonibus
Chiara Druda
Martina Romanelli

entry
free

promoted by
Comune di Città Sant’Angelo
Fondazione Pescarabruzzo

Opening hours
Thursday to Saturday 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. Sunday 11 a.m. – 2 p.m
(please check by mail or whatsapp if the opening hours have been rescheduled)

Contact details
info@museolaboratorio.org | info@luxmuseum.com
+39 085 960555 | +39 3271015880 | +39 3331049439