A digital ritual.

A Software God feeds on the energy of the performance.

-_ sabba _- Part of the iconology cycle. We live a social context in which esotherism and mysticism have lost their esence of catalyzers of the fenomenology of the iniziatic Knowledge. Reclaiming iconography and rituality, long lost to religious consumism, assumes the characteristics of a social and aesthetical protest. sabba has been a ritual, to all effects, lasting the whole first 3 days of the “Crack, fumetti dirompenti” event held at the Forte Prenestino in Rome (Italy) from the 8th to the 11th of June 2006. -_ communion with space _- The first step has been a colonization. Continuous occupying and changing of the space created solid roots in the ancient stones of the cells. Recycled materials found laying around in the Forte Prenestino were used to build the elements of the installation, thus creating a strong, physical link running between the actual space, its embedded memory, and the installation. Two software artworks were projected on the installation elements: fagocitosi, built by creating a digital ecosystem inhabited by software automas feeding on the shapes captured and identified by a webcam, and replicating by visual feedback. Their virtual ecosystem forcing them to obey the “natural” rules of balance and behaviour, too. timePainter, a sofware interpreting reality using shape and motion recognition and tracking algorythms: a painter of time’s evolutions and of the visual relationships intercurring throughout the objects moving in our visual space. During the first two days of the performance the installation space has been re-thought from scratch several times, with three stable and recurring visual assets. The adjacent spaces in the corridors and in the next cells have been progressively infected by the new parts of the installaion, denoting the spreading of the roots that we were building with the performance. At the beginning of the next phase the 3 nearest cells and all the corridors conencting them were filled with objects and projections of the images captured in the first part. All along in the meanwhile, the software installation kept on working autonomously, feeding itself on the webcam’s view of the space, conceptually charging itself up with the energies of the passing visitors, of the artists, and of the changing of the light conditions of the place. By feeding on them. -_ the ritual _- The ritual is a Pop reinterpretation of the rituals of the santeria (the worhiping of the saints), mixed with some wiccan elements and with several images and symbols coming from he traditions of the vampires. In the execution of the ritual the various characters and elements could be seen performing their roles: the Entity. The ultra-human: a software reacts to vision and sound spatially found in the space, interpreting their patterns of evolutions in harmony and rythm with fractal symbols. These were projected in the space’s walls, becoming the voice_through_symbols of the Entity. the Master of Ceremonies. The Lady conducting the ritual. She executes and controls the sequence of phases, suggesting with gestures and movement the evolution of the actions. Her image is constantly fed to the webcam, giving energy to the software automas that are the kernel of the Entity’s functions. the Initiates. They are 2, and they serve different roles, operating on different matters: the first working on image, the second on music. The first one is the executor of the ritual body painting through which the Lady is donated to the Entity. The second one is the executor of the music, that is used as the conducting Om of the mystical experience. Both assume the role of executors of the ritual actons, as suggested by the Lady. The moments when the Lady whispers instructions to the ears of the Initiates represent the transfer of Knowledge, necessary to reach the advanced states of initiation and the states of ectasy. the Novice. he receives the initiation. Which is of two kinds. On one side it is a masonic initiation, where the Art to which the future Initiate will obly to will be selected. In this case it is Music: the first form of expression of the Novice is, infact, music. He accompanies the arrival of the Lady and of the two Initiates, he performs in evolutions reminding of dance, marking the vaious phases of the ritual; after the second initiation he expresses the power of ecstasy, the descending of which will mark the ending of the ritual. On the other side it is a spiritual initiation. The Novice gets tied and his body ideally sacrificed to the Entity. The body of the Lady becomes the means for the sacrifice.
sabba Credits Installation ………………. Diego Vecchi & Lorenzo Guidi & Salvatore Iaconesi [xDxD] Video e Software Art ……………………….. Salvatore Iaconesi [xDxD] Iconography ………………. Bruno Antonio Menei Hurtado [VRU] Music ……………….. Salvatore Iaconesi [xDxD] & Vincenzo Core Performance design …………. Bruno Antonio Menei Hurtado [VRU] & Nazzarena Ciabattoni Camera operator ……………. Antonella Ibba Editing & post-production …………….. Salvatore Iaconesi [xDxD] Forte Prenestino & Crack, Fumetti dirompenti ………. http://crack.forteprenestino.net/