The results of that encounter were a series of sessions I had, one after the other over a couple of intense weeks, contemplating different paintings and portraits from the Italian fifteen and seventeen century’s art, but also from the Flemish, North European or Russian’ Icon tradition.

What I felt, staring at these figures from centuries ago, was a vibrant, pulsing energy irradiating. It’s not something easy to describe, and I’m writing this now in this simple terms well aware that these lines could appear nonsense for you now.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_Da_Vinci_-_Vergine_delle_Rocce_(Louvre).jpg#/media/File:Leonardo_Da_Vinci_-_Vergine_delle_Rocce_(Louvre).jpg

I was at the time working with non tempered intonation systems using extensively three presets I had created sampling single notes played at a certain frequency by guitarist Alessandra Novaga, clarinet player Edgardo Barlassina and by myself at cello.

These three sample-based instruments were assembled each one with a different tuning. I had created by now several works using just these three sound palettes. Two of these are in fact EEEOOOSSS and the work I’m writing about, Rueben.

https://beta.catalog.works/playlists/ab51d3ac-7ad5-4128-a7d3-66c0c6bd6e04

Theologist and mystic Pavel Florensky wrote about the idea of ‘reverse time’, conceived by the Russian theologian when discussing his well-known theory of reverse perspective in relation to Mediaeval Russian icons. Reverse time refers to a particular temporal condition underlying dreams and the experience of looking at works of art: a non-linear conception of time presenting its own duration, as opposed to the empirical one unfolding in our everyday life.

I think this is something we all can relate to…!

I played with very fast-pacing sound samples performed by a computer software at specific ratios and then re-recorded them resonating in the big San Giusto church in the town of Volterra, Tuscany during a long night of that very summer with the help of a team of dear sound enthusiasts like myself (sound engineer for film Mirco Mencacci and its polymath assistant Luca Ciarfella).

This is Rueben. The encounter with the experience of watching, the feeling of an encounter, a connection with specific time and space dimensions still possible, still real.

thanks for listening, this time with your eyes wide open

with love,

Sandro

sandromussida.com

tuttoquestosentire.com