MANIFESTO

Translating sculpture energy
into vocal energy
to move internal and external space
continuously

***

Camille worked as sculptor
for half of her life.

She spent the other half in a mental asylum
without sculpting:

What happened to her art and energy?

A picture shows her old and motionless:

she's sculpting herself from the inside.
An enigmatic smile.

 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The main focus of the project is to build up a vocal/theatrical/spatial/visual performance as a collection of suggestions inspired by the work and the biography of Camille Claudel.

The installation is a dynamic immersive environment that embodies the waltz experience sculpted by Camille in the work called “The Waltz” (1893).

The first part of the action is located in the black environment, here we introduce the sculpture from the outside, giving some details about Camille’s youth. This phase is grounded on creativity, energy, chaos and movement of external forces.

In the second part we take the users directly into the material of the sculpture located in the white environment. Here we try to imagine what happened during Camille’s old age. This phase represents a progressive evolution of the external forces into silent internal actions.

The movable scene embraces the users including them completely into the everchanging mutation of the sculpture, translating first its construction then its torsion into movement and sound.

The vocal performance follows the development of visual scores based on the mapping of the sculpture. Visual maps explore the distribution of some strategic parameters during the waltz progress.

The performance lasts about one hour.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The installation is a dynamic immersive environment that embodies the Waltz experience. Strips are the material system in use, their movement symbolizes the evolution of vectors distribution on the sculpture during the Waltz progress.

The project explores the role of the individual within the collective as an everchanging search for flexibility: we are particularly interested in the emergent modifications of the global environment according to the movement evolution of every single strip.

The form-finding design process leads the development of the tectonic model and the differentiation of it.

We used computer generated modeling techniques to understand parametrically the material performances, introducing deformation, decay, growth and mutations through their manipulations. In the same time we built a physical prototype to test the spatial performance.

The system has been studied according to specific variables such as spatial articulation, surface-volume duality, density, light distribution. Each of the variables affects the model in a way that can be measured according to certain effects we regard as "operational".

Thus, the tectonic system developed in the first stage can be reconfigured according to several criteria proposed by site-related conditions and programmatic requirements. This means that the environment configuration is completely flexible and can be manipulated according to the context in which it’s located.

The scene volume is reconfigured by the performers during the action, according to some visual maps.

KEY WORDS

Individual versus Global, Topology, Parametric design, Time-based model, Material system, Form-finding, Performance, Emergence, Evolution/Coevolution, Complex and adaptive systems, Maps.

 

Contact:
RaabeTeatro e RaabeArt
Eugenia Benelli e Monica Giovinazzi
info@raabe.it - info@raabeart.com
www.raabeart.com - www.raabe.it