Postcards from Italy. Multimedia-Konzert mit dem Duo Bottasso

In the organizer's words:

The Italian Cultural Institute Cologne presents - in cooperation with the Direzione Generale Spettacolo (DGS) of the Ministry of Culture - the multimedia concert "Postcards from Italy" with the Duo Bottasso. The event will take place on May 28 at 7 p.m. in the theater hall.

Postcards from Italy is much more than just a soundtrack to silent films, it is an accompaniment that supports memory, creating a dialog between past and present, between archived and lived experience. You can literally identify with the camera that was in a certain place 100 years ago and suddenly find yourself in a Sicilian salt mine, in the Turin factories shaped by the revolutionary movement, or simply in a small mountain village. The landscape has changed, the rivers have dried up and the workers have moved away. But recordings of all this have remained - as silent witnesses to a vanished world. Musicians Nicolò and Simone Bottasso have traveled halfway across Italy by train in the footsteps of these early directors, using contemporary sounds and new music to transform the rare silent films, carefully restored by the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, into a captivating audiovisual journey. Their performance interweaves the original sound archaeology with live music, video mapping and voices from folk traditions and political movements, exploring what remains when history is filmed - and also what's lost in the process. The films document the country of Italy in the years between 1910 and 1929; in 2023, the musicians return to the places immortalized in the films. They record the sounds of the present, collect voices on location and compare them with old sound archives of individual workers and local communities. These testimonies are interwoven with rare archive recordings and original compositions by the duo, where echoes of folk music, improvisation, contemporary textures and live electronics form a fluid, personal language.

Based in Rotterdam, Duo Bottasso creates interdisciplinary works from folk traditions, contemporary music and multidisciplinary performances. It is known for its innovative approach to archival material, its sustained touring experience and its collaborations with the worlds of classical, folk and experimental music. Postcards from Italy is his latest modular project.

Line-up

Nicolò Bott asso - violins, live images
Simone Bottasso - organetto, live electronics
Agnese Valmaggia - electronic percussion
Jelle Pijnenborg - Sound
Eye Fil mmuseum - Archive films

Commissioned by the Eye Filmmuseum. With the support of Norma Fonds, Sena, Amarte Fonds. With special thanks to Batavierhuis, Italian Cultural Institute Amsterdam, Istituto Ernesto de Martino, A.A.M.O.D. - Audiovisual Archive of the Workers' and Democracy Movement and C.R.I.D.C. Region Sicily.

Images © Federico Castelli

Still © courtesy of Eye Filmmuseum