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emanuel dimas de melo pimenta
lucrezia de domizio durini
remember joseph beuys pescara
remember joseph beuys zurique
poster score
São Paulo . aerial sounds . low frequencies . night
 New York . underground. high frequencies. day
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Both the concert and the movie CEJB were
made in response to a dear invitation by Lucrezia De Domizio
Durini, to integrate the great event Remember Joseph Beuys
in Pescara, Italy, in 2014, as a celebration of the thirty-sixth
anniversary of the Discussion Foundation for the Revival of Agriculture,
by Joseph Beuys, on February 12, 1978, in Pescara at the Mercantile
Exchange (Borsa Merci di Pescara).
The concerts, events and conferences - everything was originally
involved with an essential question: Who is Joseph Beuys? - hence
the title of the concert and movie (Chi è Joseph Beuys?
- CEJB).
I started following the work, thought and life of Beuys since
1979, when the German Master attended the Biennale of São
Paulo. I was living in Brazil, I visited that Biennale and since
then I always followed his steps. In 1983 I made a concert dedicated
to him at MIS Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo,
along with a work by the artist Fernando Zarif. In 1985 John
Cage invited me to work with him and with Merce Cunningham -
and they were friends of Beuys. In 1990, I met Lucrezia De Domizio
Durini, in Milan, Italy, who had been a close friend and collaborator
of Beuys. Lucrezia immediately became a dear friend of mine.
I was 33 years old. Lucrezia De Domizio was responsible for my
presence in Italy. And through her I became even closer to Joseph
Beuys.
Who is Joseph Beuys ?
If we look at Beuys' work and thought - even when he is immersed
in Nature - everything will always revolve around the human being.
All the work of Joseph Beuys is concentrated, deeply focused
on the human being - mythology, sociology, science, or money.
Everything Beuys says inevitably is in relation to the Humanity.
This is Joseph Beuys.
And what is the sign par excellence of Humanity, of the human
being? That is: what is the physical thing on Earth that exclusively
tells us about humans? If we mention language, for example, the
answer is not conclusive. There are animals with rudimentary
principles of language. The same happens with sounds, that would
bring us music. Or with plastic manifestations - in other dimensions
they also happen with other beings. Love? Tools? It will be all
the same. All that is shared with other beings, in a greater
or lesser density.
We could adventurously say that science, philosophy and art,
or human knowledge, are uniquely human things. But, they are
immaterial.
The question remains: what is on Earth, physically, that exclusively
indicates us the human being?
A question for one answer: the machine.
No other being has ever devised something like a machine.
I take the machine in its broadest sense.
Thus, for the concert, I determined two megacities in the world
- two megacities of the new world, in America: São Paulo
and New York City.
In São Paulo I went up to the top floor of a tall building.
From there, a high point, I recorded the sounds of the city.
In New York City, I plunged into its undergrounds and recorded
his bowels.
Then I worked these sounds according to some principles, establishing
a logical diagram of transformations, of metamorphoses.
Thus the concert CEJB was born.
It works in a wide range of frequencies - from the very lower
to the very high ones. And, the most impressive: when we pay
attention to these sounds - from the top and of underground of
the cities, the only thing we hear are machines.
To listen the city is to hear the machine, in all its manifestations.
And, unlikely what La Mettrie believed, it is not the human that
becomes machine, but the machine that reveals the human. And
the machine is transformed in electrical circuits.
It will be machine until the moment when it will be able to reproduce
itself. Thus, the machine - in all its dimensions - is a pre-organic
condition.
The movie was made on the same basis - aerial view images of
cities and of their dark underground tunnels.
Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta . 2014
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