BODYSCAPING: Dynamic Architectures for the Body

Massimo Bevilacqua – Teatro Studio Krypton

Opening July 14, 6:30 p.m., performance
July 15-16, 2023 | Sat. – Sun. 11 a.m.- 8 p.m.

Starting from a reflection on the common etymological root of the words “dress” and “inhabit,” the artist dwells on the habits and identity that our “second skin” communicates through its language, representing the medium by which our bodies occupy the spaces we inhabit.

Photo: © Massimo Bevilacqua – Teatro Studio Krypton, BODYSCAPING: Dynamic Architectures for the body, in MIGRAZIONI DIGITALI, 2023.

BODYSCAPING: Dynamic Architectures for the Body is an event by Massimo Bevilacqua and produced by Teatro Studio Krypton in collaboration with the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory of Music. The event is part of the Estate Fiorentina 2023 season of events and is produced with the contribution of the Municipality of Florence and the Metropolitan City of Florence.

The performer using a dress-sculpture-whose surface is enhanced by the dynamism of visual processing-activates soundscapes and unusual symbolic narratives through motion sensors. The body with its superstructure expands and contracts through the perceptual stresses of sound, light and image, resulting in a shifting, moving architecture.

The sound project and technical-interactive apparatuses are made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory of Music, which enabled the involvement of four young musicians from the Electronic Music and New Technologies course.

The performance work is thus configured as a live electronics in which the performer’s body becomes an instrument in dialogue with the four young performers. The narrative develops in eight pictures, in each of which the musical compositions travel through an environment, a specific landscape of the city and nature; those places of daily living in which humanity pours out, generating from time to time codifiable trajectories and rhythms. Here then, in an imaginary journey in which the body remains at a standstill, the chaotic crossing of urban traffic, the momentary stillness of a city park, the cadenced and deafening rhythms of an industrial landscape, the oscillating and hypnotic movement of a seascape, the frenzy and anticipation of an airport or a railway, the dazzling kaleidoscopic atmosphere of an amusement park, and the peace and restlessness of a night landscape alternate.

The project is enriched with a video installation generated through what is referred to in photography as a “double exposure” technique. The moving body embraces the landscape and blends with it, giving it new forms and rhythms. The installation, conceived for the Digital Shelter, consists of 16 screens and is created together with video artist Alessio Bianciardi.

BODYSCAPING: Dynamic Architectures for the Body is part of MIGRAZIONI DIGITALI, a project by Teatro Studio Krypton that aims to connect, through a layered format that provides elements of experiential knowledge and synergistic participation, two different but potentially complementary cultural and creative models: performance art that relies on the body and its ability to act in a physical space, and digital art that aims to recreate an emotional and sensory level through seemingly cold and inexpressive technological tools. The project also includes Peaceful Places by Margherita Landi and Agnese Lanza, a participatory performance through the use of VR technology.

Massimo Bevilacqua

È techno artist, virtual designer e art director, dal 2004 collabora con Teatro Studio Krypton, affiancando Giancarlo Cauteruccio nelle sue creazioni sia di teatro che installative. Negli anni ha sviluppato un percorso di specializzazione in scenografia virtuale e regia visuale attraverso l’adozione del videomapping applicato alla scenografia teatrale e avviato un’indagine sul rapporto tra nuove tecnologie e performance art alla ricerca di nuovi linguaggi espressivi e inedite drammaturgie.

Dal 2014 cura alcune iniziative del progetto Nel Chiostro delle Geometrie, che ha visto la partecipazione di artisti del calibro di Vittorio Corsini e Costas Tsoclis, e di giovani artisti come Stefano Giuri, Matteo Coluccia, Gianluca Trusso Forgia. Dal 2018 è ideatore, insieme a Giancarlo Cauteruccio, del Tenax Theatre, spazio di sperimentazione e creazione artistica nel quale attiva laboratori sulla performance art puntando la ricerca sul rapporto tra corpo e tecnologie e realizzando la performance experience CorpoImmaginE e, nel 2019, la performance experience OscenaMente – Nella Carne dell’Incubo.

Nel 2020 ha ideato il progetto RespirArea – Laboratori dell’Arte nei Luoghi Comuni con la curatela di Pietro Gaglianò, mentre nel 2021 fonda, insieme a Ecosistemi Artificiali, l’Hyper Art Fest, che ha debuttato in fase sperimentale a Firenze nel dicembre dello stesso anno vedendo la partecipazione di un numeroso pubblico soprattutto under 30.