** Collector’s editions of 15 copies with a limited edition artwork by Margherita Morgantin: an eV (electronvolt) scalimeter in stainless steel with fluorinated enamel, size 3.5 x 27 cm. ** Xing presents the new LP Cosmic Silence 5, fluorescence 4 by Margherita Morgantin with Ilaria Lemmo and Beatrice Goldoni, sixth release of XONG collection – artist’s records
The release is on clear/white marble vinyl, in a limited and numbered edition of 150 copies. The collector's edition consists of 15 copies, each accompanied by a limited edition artwork by Margherita Morgantin: an eV (electronvolt) steel scalimeter with an intervention by the artist.
Cosmic Silence 5, fluorescence 4 was created from the dialogue of the visual artist Margherita Morgantin with two musicians and sound makers, within her research project VIP = Violation of the Pauli exclusion principle (2020-21). On one side the record hosts the translation into sound spectra of a series of data from the VIP experiment in progress in the LNGS Gran Sasso Nuclear Physics Laboratories, processed by the electronic music composer Ilaria Lemmo: the sounds constantly oscillate between origin and destination in an environment of pure suspension. On the other side, it presents a road-noise-recording spawned from the artist's solitary journey from Milan to Porto by car, elaborated together with Beatrice Goldoni. The titles of this double composition are inspired by two sources: Cosmic Silence refers to the experiments in the scientific field with the aim of deepening the study of the molecular mechanisms involved in the biological response to environmental radiation. Fluorescence alludes to the physical phenomenon of re-emission of the radiation received, which can be intercepted in the visible range in the dark. "Thus the gaze in the dark becomes listening." (M.M.)
Ilaria Lemmo on Cosmic Silence (Side A): “The sound processing took place through the writing of algorithms that take a point - or rather a list of values- and generate a sound, a spectrum, which is led to move towards another. A directional sound that constantly fluctuates between the place it comes from and the place it tends towards. An oscillation that also emerges within the sound itself and its contours. The minimum condition to let this movement manifest, was to compose the numerical data, so complex but marked, to leave the possibility of creating a sound environment where the "impossible atoms", whose presence would violate Pauli's Principle of Exclusion, could find a listening space to happen.” (I.L.)
Beatrice Goldoni on Fluorescence (Side B): “Born from the narrative need of a journey, the composition is the result of a series of lo-fi recordings made by Margherita Morgantin during the journey by car to the Serralves Museum in Porto. It is thus constituted as an essential noise track in which the compositional act is reduced to the minimum possible, since the artistic and musical gesture consists above all in the choice of the sound elements of the journey letting them resonate, and in the care of these sounds so that they reveal their versatility. The sound of the car is the roar of the engine, at times more muffled, at times more enveloping, but it is also the wind that beats on the metal and glass of the windows. The sea, on the Portuguese coast, is a breath: a breath for a voice that does not have to "mean" but which is the sign of Morgantin's passage through those places. The little bells (which allude to the resonant little bell tied at the bottom of Morgantin's wind sleeves - a recurring element in her art that signals the invisible movements of the air) are synaesthetically fluorescent, like the windsocks installed in Serralves and like the jackets of the workers on motorways: the circle - the record - is closed. To be reopened with each new listening.” (B.G.)
Margherita Morgantin is a visual artist based in Milan. Her artistic production is articulated through different languages, ranging from drawing and installation to performance, moving on a thread that connects language, philosophy, mathematics and visual culture. Contact and cohabitation, observation and imagination, are the open intervals that characterize her work. She has participated in contemporary art exhibitions, and carried out special projects in different contexts including: Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporanea (Porto), Venice Biennale and Ca’ Pesaro – Galleria Internazionale d Arte Moderna (Venezia), Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Roma), MAXXI L’Aquila, Museion (Bolzano), MAMbo, Xing, Fondazione Furla (Bologna).
Ilaria Lemmo is a composer and sound researcher in the field of electronic and experimental music, based in Turin. Her work explores the possibilities of algorithmic composition in relation and dialogue with the acoustic space and as a listening practice. She also works as a sound designer for performing and visual arts and teaches electronic music.
Beatrice Goldoni is a sound designer and music maker based in Venice. She devotes herself to sound engineering and experiments around the potential of electronic music, psychoacoustics and environmental recording, guided by the idea that sound should be thought and experienced outside of visual metaphors. For several years she has been working as a DJ, preferring underground atmospheres and sounds.