Fabrizio Di Salvo
hyd~ translates the circulation of water into a choreographed sculpture of sound and motion.
An industrial robotic arm, commonly employed in medical and laboratory automation, guides a parametric loudspeaker that projects self recorded soundscapes of the river Rhine captured with a hydrophone, a microphone used for recording underwater environments. Covered by a black shimmering textile, the focused beam of sound and the articulated gestures of the arm form a field in which direction, reflection and movement intertwine.
By transposing a tool of precision and control into an environment of fluid uncertainty, hyd~ explores the shifting boundary between care and extraction, measurement and flow. The work evokes the image of a fountain as both technological construct and vanishing resource, turning the prospect of future scarcity into an acoustic and spatial experience.
sonic residuals translates the end of an instrument’s life cycle into an act of transformation.
Instruments that have become discarded, damaged or unplayable are subjected to a final physical gesture: they are run over by a vehicle. This procedure enacts a radical reshaping in which their resonant bodies are deformed and their function seemingly erased.
Yet within this destruction a new beginning emerges. The crushed instruments carry the traces of impact as signs of conversion. They lose their original form but retain their identity as musical instruments. Even when no sound can be produced, their relation to music remains tangible, as visual resonance, as a memory of vibration.
The work explores the threshold between sound and object, function and meaning. It suggests that musical instruments, even in complete physical ruin, preserve an echo of their initial purpose.