![]() In a sense, they represent our collective memories, desires of escape and love, experiences of loss, ghosts of our past and our future.” Photography: Carlo Banfi The natural scenery acts again as a counterpoint to the characters’ feelings, and even though the circumstances of their stories are barely hinted at, we relate to their fierce universality. “With the ‘Broken Melody’ video we wanted to explore similar depths of emotion, though this time by evoking them through multiple subjects and points of view. “It is a delicate balance capable of creating a rather unique connection between her own performance and our perception: once this channel is opened, we experience the same vibrant feelings that orient her practice, through rapture and catharsis.” “In our previous collaborations, Caterina has always been framed as a central subject, acting as the gravitational pole around which her melodies, my imagery, and ultimately the attention of the public orbit together,” Spini says. “Unlike anything else, music can channel the complex, beautiful spectrum of feelings that natural landscapes evoke in humans. In our audio-visual collaborations, Ruben and I have often used sound and vision to explore that spiritual, ecstatic connection to nature – a type of experience becoming more and more rare in late capitalism.” Photography: Carlo Banfi Slow-motion imagery of solitary figures in uncanny, desolate landscapes depicts a series of tableaux vivants infused with magic realism and melancholia.” There is a dystopian vibe but there is also a weird sense of romance connected to it, like a love song to the end of the world,” says Barbieri. “The video takes inspiration from the iconography of female subjects represented in ambiguous sensorial states, suspended between contemplation and death, ecstasy and annihilation. “The video for Broken Melody explores some of the themes of the song: love, loss, empathy and melancholy on a ghost planet. It’s Emily Dickinson’s “The Brain – is wider than the Sky (…) The Brain – is deeper than the Sea”.” Photography: Carlo BanfiĮlements of the footage taken for the ‘Broken Melody’ visual feature as part of ‘Vigil’, a multimedia installation from Caterina Barbieri and frequent collaborator Ruben Spini, newly commissioned by 180 Studios, which is now on display as part of Future Shock, a major exhibition of 14 leading international artists and collectives working at the cutting-edge of audiovisual technology. It’s the “interior castle” of Santa Teresa D’Avila. The friction between the constriction of their physical lives and the cosmic freedom of the inner world and power of the mind is at the very root of visionary female thinking. As they couldn’t freely move in the outside world, they were often redirecting their own energy towards the inner world, thus cultivating a cosmogonic modality of thought. Female poets, artists, mystics were often living segregated lives – observing the world from a window, a gate, a filter. During this time, I thought a lot about the spatial dimension of confinement as a strong archetype of the female condition in the past and how it shaped the visionary, mystical vein of female thought. It was the only way to travel in time and space when movement in the outside world was not possible. “During this time of extreme self-isolation, music became for me like a portal to transcend a state of confinement and sensorial deprivation. “I composed Broken Melody and most of Spirit Exit during the first lockdown of 2020 in Milan, when Milan was one of the darkest hotspots of the pandemic,” Barbieri says. Teresa D’Avila’s foundational 16th century mystical text The Interior Castle, philosopher Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman theories and the metaphysical poetry of Emily Dickinson. The follow-up to 2019’s Ecstatic Computation and 2017’s Patterns Of Consciousness sees Barbieri exploring internal worlds, drawing influence from St. Spirit Exit marks the first album Barbieri has written entirely in this studio and was recorded during Milan’s two-month pandemic lockdown in 2020. ![]() Picking up the thread of ‘Knot Of Spirit’, a collaboration with “futurist folk” musician Lyra Pramuk and the first release on Barbieri’s recently launched label platform, light-years, ‘Broken Melody’ showcases the composer’s custom modular synth rig, which she developed over the course of the making of Spirit Exit in her home studio in Milan. ‘Broken Melody’, the second single from Caterina Barbieri’s new album Spirit Exit, is accompanied by a gorgeous visual from director Iacopo Carapelli and artist Ruben Spini, which sets stunning, slow-motion footage of levitating bodies against Barbieri’s equally transcendent synths and haunting vocals. A co-commission from 180 Studios and Fact.
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