Lockdown Residency

Three months ago we started our Lockdown Residencies journey in Rome. As the lockdown easies off and we slowly settle into a new normal, we now return to Italy to conclude the Art Arcadia Lockdown Residencies series with Alessandro Ragazzo and the noise and soundscapes of his field recordings.

Alessandro Ragazzo has been experimenting with sound since 1994. After years of digital practice and research on sound and the Romantic literature of the 1800s, he developed a naturalistic approach influenced by the texts of Raymond Murray Schafer on field recording and the concept of landscape; he then embraced the analogue approach, crumbling and disarticulating the soundscape. His practise makes use of mixers, distorters and everything that can be connected analogically, tape recorders, Walkman, mp3 players, microphones, plants and vanished moments continuously recording life and its noise.

In 2014 he released his album Strati. In 2015, Lagoon for the Portuguese label Green Field Recordings. In 2017 the albums Setola di Maiale and terra d’ombra. Ragazzo has been involved in multiple collaborations with the Luciano Berio foundation a Florence, Setup Art Fair in Bologna with the Area of Bustle project, soundproofing and live performance at the Taiwan pavilion Venice Biennale for Yang Maolin, and the Ascolto Osceno per Navi (2018) at the palace Roncalli in Vigevano for the meeting on the soundscape for FKL; in 2019 he performed at the MACRO art museum contemporary in Rome. In January 2020, he publishes Napoli with the SonoSpace for the Field Notes project, followed by Twin Landscape. 

Alessandro Ragazzo is on Soundcloud and YouTube

Art Arcadia Lockdown Residencies are in partnership with St Augustine’s Heritage Site, kindly funded by Derry City & Strabane District Council.