Program
Una Cosa Mostruosa has at its core a sound intervention by Etrusca 3D, the latest project of Francesco Cavaliere and Spencer Clark, who present "Trickster Blade". A narrative-musical work, a Babylonian library in which sound and word give shape to an evanescent sonic space with infinite historical, archaeological, science fiction and future references. The site-specific performance of Etrusca 3D is prepared during a week-long residency at Palazzo Orsini in the week before Una Cosa Mostruosa. The concert takes place on July 17, 2021 at the conclusion of the initiatory path that silently structures the Sacro Bosco, at the foot of the Temple dedicated by Vicino Orsini to his wife Giulia Farnese.
Una Cosa Mostruosa reinterprets the Renaissance images found in the Sacro Bosco, inspired by Giulio Camillo Delminio's iconic 16th century treatise on mnemonics, "L’Idea del Theatro". The visual artist Giulio Scalisi is invited to redraw nineteen mnemonic images, transposing them into a chimerical and three-dimensional contemporary imagery. The nineteen images of Giulio Scalisi compose a card game M3MORY 3D, a variation of the Memory game which features lacuna cards: these cards evoke the temporary loss of memory that characterizes the hyperstimulation of the digital world. M3MORY 3D is the summa of Una Cosa Mostruosa, an invitation to play and (above all) to remember, an archetypal catalog that will be published on July 17, 2021.
Una Cosa Mostruosa also features a narrative intervention by Professor Antonio Rocca, a museologist and art historian who has dedicated the last two decades to the study of the Sacro Bosco and its complex symbolism, discovering its conceptual origin in Giulio Camillo's iconic treatise on Renaissance mnemonics, "L'Idea del Theatro". Professor Antonio Rocca's visionary interpretation of the Sacro Bosco has allowed thousands of visitors to explore and understand what is one of the most enigmatic places of the Hermetic Renaissance. Professor Antonio Rocca will hold a special guided tour designed specifically for Una Cosa Mostruosa on July 17, 2021.
Etrusca 3D
Etrusca 3D is the new project of the two avant-garde musicians and composers Francesco Cavaliere and Spencer Clark. We are fooled by its title into considering this work as a direct focus on analyzing Etruscan civilization. It is true that this musical-narrative work has as its starting point a strong attraction towards the imagery of this civilization, which like a game setting is completed and defined by as many elements deriving from the fantastic. As to wander in Italy you can find the remaking of the door to the arch volterrana to Rosazza in the valley of the torrent cervo, wanted by Federico Rosata at the end of the 800. Among the architectures of Etrusca 3D you can find characters dissimilar from their landscape of origin. Other elements such as the presence of Trickster. "Trickster Blade" is the title of the collection of music that Francesco Cavaliere and Spencer Clark have created using the moniker of Etrusca 3D. A trickster? A lover of tricks? A puffin who plays with swords? A leprechaun skilled with knives? Perhaps the pixie could better satisfy his fairytale character cadences by being mocking, magical and lovable at the same time. In truth, even in this case, Trickster is not that classic Anglo-Saxon reference figure with foxy features, but a harlequin with colors stolen from many fictional characters, like the antagonist of "Brainscan" horror movie of 1994. With these assumptions we can imagine the presence of Trickster who appears beyond the door to the arc to trick Thuchulcha the volcanic demon Etrusca? Etrusca 3D as all the works of Francesco Cavaliere and Spencer Clark is a universe where you can find many messages to interpret freely, messages that specifically and almost obsessively relocate in the most expanded panorama of ancient and contemporary culture.
Giulio Scalisi
Giulio Scalisi (Salemi, 1992) lives and works in Milan. He is a multimedia artist whose work takes shape through different mediums and forms, such as videos, comics, installations and drawings.He tries to gaze inside himself, as a subject living in contemporaneity, knowing that the “individual” is nothing but the product and mixing of forces coming from outside, forces that are able to induce desire, joy or fear, and the study of these compulsions is the subject of his work. The result of this observation is used to create characters, places and stories that try to narrate contemporaneity through a subjective sensibility. In 2014 he takes his BA in Visual Arts at NABA, Milan and in 2016 a MA in Visual Arts at Écal, Lausanne. Among the group shows: Good Guys (Gran Riserva), Gasconade, Roma; tAPC/the Artist’s PC, Le Botanique Centre Culturel, Bruxells; Life is a Bed of Roses, Fondation Ricard, Paris; Homesick, Futuredome, Milan; “Fedeli alla linea”, Sonnenstübe, Lugano; “Every breath you take”, Galleria Umberto di Marino, Naples; Dripping in crocodile tears, Like a little disaster, Polignano; 1999, Kaleidoscope @ Spazio Maiocchi, Milan ; A healthy dose of confusion before the bang, Federica Schiavo Gallery, Milan; Basta, Palazzo Monti, Brescia. Solo show: Alghe Romantiche, Tile Project Space, Milan.
Antonio Rocca
Antonio Rocca is an art historian and museologist specialized in the history of Renaissance in Tuscia, the land of Etruscans. Professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Viterbo, collaborator of Artribune and La Repubblica, scientific consultant of Rai and Mediaset, after going through the history of contemporary art and museology, he dedicated himself to the valorisation of the history of Renaissance in Tuscia, becoming one of the major experts of the Sacred Wood of Bomarzo. Before dedicating himself to Vicino Orsini, he focused, among other things, on Alfred Jarry, Pier Paolo Pasolini and the relationship between revolutionaries and the avant-garde of the twentieth century. Among his publications: “Bomarzo”, Gangemi, Editore; “Le torri e le Case-Torre di Narni”, Edizioni Archeoares; “Ville e giardini storici della Tuscia”, Ginevra Bentivoglio Editori; “Bomarzo ermetica”, Edizioni Sette Città; “Savonarola e Michelangelo”, Edizioni Archeoares.