You are invited to

Giuseppe GavazzaSemafori/Lighthouses

Semafori II: Sirene

at USF AiR Studio 2, Georgernes Verft 12, Bergen, Entrance E, 3rd floor, Room 355

Semafori II: Sirene is an audio installation conceived and realized for Studio2 and its passageway at USF Bergen during the Artist in Residence period of January and February 2012.

Semafori/Lighthouses is an audio-video installation realized for and presented at Lighthouses Relay - Folkestone Fringe Triennial, UK on August 2011.

Semafori/Lighthouses and Semafori II: Sirene will be presented at USF, Artist in Residence Studio 2 (USF Georgernes Verft 12, Bergen, Entrance E, 3rd floor, room 355) on this dates and times:

Thursday February 23: h 17-18.30Friday February 24: h 17-18.30Saturday February 25: h 17-20Sunday February 26: h 17-18.30

In the same days I will spend most of my time in Studio2: if someone would arrange a different time for visit please contact me at : 97474265 or email: giuseppe.gavazza@iol.it

The door of Entrance E should be closed on Saturday and Sunday; you can enter from Entrance A, at Kafè Kippers level, then going end of the corridor climb the staircase to 3rd floor and search Studio2-Room 355 (following some arrows I will arrange in the while); otherwise call my self-phone (always 97474265) and I will help you entering.

Many thanks

Hoping to see you soon

Giuseppe Gavazza

See attached info

Warm thanks to USF AiR Bergen and Folkestone Fringe Festival

http://www.airbergen.no/http://www.folkestonefringe.com/2011/lighthouserelay.html

Read, see and listen more at the blog: http://www.folkestonefringe.com/2011/lighthouse_relay/08_giuseppe_gavazza.html

http://www.giuseppegavazza.it

Giuseppe GavazzaSemafori II: Sirene

at USF-AiR Studio2, Bergen February 23-26 2012

siren |ˈsʌɪr(əә)nː| : noun1 a device that makes a loud prolonged sound as a signal or warning : ambulance sirens.2 Greek Mythology each of a number of women or winged creatures whose singing lured unwary sailors onto rocks.• a woman who is considered to be alluring or fascinating but also dangerous in some way.

semaphore |ˈsɛməәfɔː| nouna system of sending messages by holding the arms or two flags or poles in certain positions according to an alphabetic code.”(New Oxford American Dictionary)

English: lighthouse Italian: faro French: phareItalian : semaforo English : traffic light French : feu

Semaforo comes from Greek σεµα (signal, meaning) e φερω (in this case: to bring).

About Semafori (Lighthouse Relay, Folkestone Fringe Festival, August 2011) I wrote:Every lighthouse has its own “voice”: his simple rhythm is its name and declare the position in which it is. Lighthouses are visual sirens (and in Italian sirena means both siren and mermaid), are visual and musical communicators for the navigators.

Sirens are warning audible signals: in the fog and in the dark for example. Every ship has its own voice in its siren. The voices of mermaids bewitch.

Semafori, as a project, was thought up at Chateau de La Napoule during an Artist Residence in February 2000 and was realised at Folkestone Fringe in 2011. During the same residence at La Napoule I planned a project titled Sirene: mermaids vox captivate along the years, inexorable.

During the Artist Residence here in Bergen AiR-USF , January and February 2012, I can listen and see the Hurti Gruten ship arriving every day at Bergen, south terminal harbour of the cruise from north. Arriving (almost) always they greet the town with a 4 sounds hello!From Studio 2 at USF , Georgernesverft 12, Bergen (few metres from HurtiGruten terminal wharf) I have recorded the hellos! of all the eleven Hurti Gruten ships:

I have mounted these recordings in a unique audio files: in chronological order (as recorded) every ship punctuates the minutes of the 12 minutes long file.

0'00'' - Silence1'00''- MS Nordnorge recorded 1/23/2012 2'00''- MS Kong Harald recorded 1/29/20123'00'' - MS Vesterålen recorded 2/1/2012 4'00'' - MS Nordkapp recorded 2/2/2012 5'00'' - MS Richard With recorded 2/6/20126'00'' - MS Polarlys recorded 2/15/20127'00'' - MS Finnmarken recorded 2/16/20128'00'' - Nordstjernen recorded 2/18/2012 9'00'' - MS Trollfjord recorded 2/19/2012 10'00'' - MS Lofoten recorded 2/21/2012 11'00'' - MS Midnatsol recorded 2/22/2012 12'00'' - STOP

I have then performed - night time - this 12' audio file in the corridor, 3rd floor, out of the door of Stu-dio2, with two loudspeakers, adding a double delay (of about 7 and 12 seconds, a simple Pure Data patcher) to create a slow audio feedback reinforcing more and more the natural resonances of the cor-ridor (obviously the idea comes from Alvin Lucier's masterpiece I am sitting in a room, 1969). When the 12' sound finish, in about 2 minutes, the resonances fade out to silence. I have recorded all this 14' audio performance (on four channels with a Zoom H2 handy digital audio recorder) and I will diffuse it using a portable battery powered low power audio system (an iPod mp3 player and a Mitone MitSp20 stereo travel speakers) placed in the same place (close to the roof, on the door of Studio 2) of the recording digital recorder.

G.G. February 22nd 2012.

Giuseppe Gavazza

Semafori/lighthouses

Italian : semaforo English : traffic light French : feu

Semaforo comes from Greek σεµα (signal, meaning) e φερω (in this case: to bring).

(In English semaphore indicate “a system of sending messages by holding the arms or two flags or poles in certain positions according to an alphabetic code.”)

Personally I feel lighthouses as more semaphoric (bringer of meaning) then traffic lights.

Italian: faro English: lighthouse French: phare

Every lighthouse has its own “voice”: his simple rhythm is its name and declare the position in which it is. Lighthouses are visual sirens (and in Italian sirena means both siren and mermaid), are visual and musical communicators for the navigators.

During my residence in 2000 at La Napoule Castle Art Foundation I had a beautiful room just on the sea, in the castle's tower; from the little balcony of this room I could see 8 lighthouses, everyone with his own luminous voice. An eight voices silent night choir.

I recorded on video and audio the 8 lighthouses, overnight and during the day; of course both images and sounds are very different during night and day.

By adding an artificial audio-voice - a different short sound for every lighthouse - synchronized with its light rhythm, we can reveal lighthouse's voices also during the day transforming the silent luminous choir in an audible poly-rhythmic one on the background of original natural soundscape.

The AV installation project

Every video with his audio will be transmitted through different (1, 2, 4, 8) audio-video equipments (monitor + loudspeaker) being all the (1, 2, 4, 8) in the same, quiet and silent and (quite) dark space.

Giuseppe Gavazza, December 2010

giuseppe.gavazza@iol.it www.giuseppegavazza.it