Paulo Mazzanti/Paul Statham

PESARO – ITALY.
5 - 21 August 2007
Paolo Mazzanti - Paul Statham
" LA VISTA DEL TEMPO"
and event of music and image
Curator Victor De Circasia
" attorno al festival" Rossini Opera Festival - PESARO

Paul Statham is a terrific modern writer-composer who lives in the centre of the music world in London. Paolo Mazzanti lives in Pesaro but his photographic work has a global status. Victor De Circasia is an international curator and museum adviser who manages arts and cultural programs for some of the most important foundations worldwide.
For Paolo Mazzanti and Paul Statham the fellowship of Rossini is a superb occasion which has brought them together to write a rare art project from a contemporary perspective.
They got together after a suggestion by some of the organizers of the Rossini festival to make a contribution to the Rossini Opera Festival. Over the past few months they have fulfilled the task of studying and reworking the initial idea and have shown a keen sense of purpose. They have also found in nature a source of inspiration about Rossini.
Their approach is to use the modern digital media. They have been responsive and interactive with history, music and the principles of using interactivity, which results in a high degree of collaboration building a coherent and powerful piece loyal to the work of Rossini but with the capacity to remain contemporary. They have managed to comment and reflect on the vibrancy and the attitude of the music by exploring Guillaume Tell Overture, The Stabat mater and Duetto per Violoncello e Contrabasso. They show that they value the spectator and their input. The viewer can monitor every comment or intervention in the music and the images presented.
Every musical comment pours onto the images. The viewer can reflect various points of view. The work is a sharp and lively debate about music onto the eye and to what we experience. They have accomplished a parallel work with a one identity: Rossini.
These artists demonstrate that you don't need to be a part of the opera crowd to follow and perceive the interaction of music and image representation in an event that includes the most familiar compositions of Rossini. In fact, the important issue of this event is the right to listen to the music encoded in the image. As with many cultural objects, the model is the false assumption that the work of a musical genius like Rossini cannot have a new outlook or be reinterpreted.
In this project the particular impression is what is happening with the interactivity of creating a new
musical score. Digital technology allows us to listen to the new version of music in a different
manner and it is not the only way to portray a piece of music or a moving image. Paul Statham and
Paolo Mazzanti redefine the possibilities of interacting with inspiration and ideas. Who knows
How long it will take for other people to untangle the nature of cultural interactivity in a digital
world.

Victor de Circasia