Air, 2018

1, 2, Air Milano, UV flatbed print on piano roll, frame, various sizes, installation view, Increasing the Wind Pressure, A+B gallery, Brescia, IT, 2018. Ph: Petrò / Gilberti
3, Air Milano Turkey Trot 20110511 - 20120101, 2018, UV flatbed print on piano roll, frame, 35,7 x 37,5 cm. Ph: Petrò / Gilberti
4, 5, 6, 7, Air Milano, UV flatbed print on piano roll, frame, various sizes, installation view, The Uncanny Valley, FuturDome, Milano, IT, 2019. Ph: Cosimo Filippini
8, The Uncanny Valley, Exhibition catalogue, EAU&GAZ, 2019


The Air series opens up an exploration of a particular space of knowledge, in which the apparent objectivity of data and information is constantly negotiated with the instability of human habits and environments.
Closer examination brings out a spectrum of exceptional events, made possible by the coexistence of different sign systems.
Air oscillates between subtle presence and a global representation, calling on us to experience the volatility of written knowledge when merged with the various ideas of freedom that lie within our interpretations of living.

In 2008, the European Parliament produced a reference text to monitor air quality. I decided to approach this document as if it were a song; instead of reading it, I started to sing it repeatedly on blues bases. I am interested in the rhythm of information, the possibility of a regulation being imprinted in an emotional substrate.
Emphasis was placed on the importance of public information on air quality and on making the data public. I asked for these data, wondering whether through them I could witness some form of expression of reality. I decided to use this raw material and turn it into a visualisation so as to bring out an air score.

The works in the Air series are prints on special perforated papers. A seven-colour system is available on the length and height of the surface, introducing a flow of information. It is a representation of the values of the main potentially harmful substances present in the air, recorded by the Municipality of Milan over the last ten years.
A different substance is associated with each colour (PM 10, black; PM 2.5, light blue; nitrogen dioxide, red; sulphur dioxide, light grey; benzene, green; carbon monoxide, yellow; ozone, dark blue). Time flows from left to right, one millimetre corresponding to one day. The paper is sectioned vertically by five intervals, and the value of each substance is placed in one of the five registers according to its average value on a certain day. The highest band marks a good value, the lowest one a bad value. The choice of the substances and their division into five bands follows the guidelines on air assessment standardised by Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council held on 21 May 2008. It also refers on how Arpa Lombardia, where the data come from, determines and communicates the five intervals.  

The perforated papers are segments of different piano rolls acquired from a private collection in Milan. They were produced between 1910 and the early 1930s and used to record a pianist’s performances. Thus a player piano can reproduce the pieces automatically thanks to a pneumatic system that executes the original performance without the performer. The composition of the wall works follows the temporal logic relative to the writing of the substances present in the air. When objects overlap, we can see the same data frame is printed onto different musical motifs.

Increasing the Wind Pressure, solo exhibition, A+B gallery, Brescia, IT
Interview with Silvia Hell | A+B Gallery, ATP Diary [ITA]

Wind Pressure Concert, 2019
19.09. > 8.30 PM, Transart19, Museion, Bolzano, IT

1, 2, 12, Wind Pressure Concert, 2019, Museion, documentation stills ©Festival Transart/Max Valenti
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Wind Pressure Concert, 2019, Museion. Ph: ©Festival Transart/Gregor Khuen Belasi
8, 9, 10, 11 Wind Pressure Concert, 2019, Museion

by Silvia Hell
Enrico Pompili, Piano
Mark Markin, Maximilian Pellizzari, Machine operators
The work is projected by the machine of colorful light play by the artist Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack (reconstruction 1923-1999, Museion Collection).
// For the 100 years of the Bauhaus
Thanks to the collaboration between Transart, Museion and SKB - Südtiroler Künstlerbund.

The Wind Pressure Concert is about the subject of air through the use of the piano and projection. In a sort of space-time circuit, a composition is created using two contexts that have never communicated before. The work Wind Pressure Concert_score_for Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack Lichtspielapparat_Aria Milano 1972–2017 / Aria Bolzano 2008–2017 by Silvia Hell is a chronology of seven polluting substances that were monitored in the air in the two cities. The same language the artist used to display it will be re-encoded and interpreted by the pianist Enrico Pompili. Transboundary air pollution!


Wind Pressure Concert, documentation video
Wind Pressure Concert, score and track, ON AIR, a project by Juan Pablo Macías & Alessandra Poggianti for Carico Massimo

Scored Air, 2019
video, 5’ 3’’ loop, music Enrico Pompili
Museion Media Façade, curated by Frida Carazzato

1, 2, 3, Scored Air, 2019, HD video, 5’ 3’’ loop, music Enrico Pompili. Ph: Othmar Seehauser/Museion
4, 5, 6, 7, Scored Air, 2019, HD video, 5’ 3’’ loop, music Enrico Pompili

The visual and musical performance of the Wind Pressure Concert is recoded for the media façade. Scored Air is focused on ten years of seven polluting substances that were monitored in the air of Bolzano.

Wind Pressure Concert, 2021
Sunday 10 October
1.30 pm at the Monopteros in the English Garden
4 pm at the Isar in front of St. Maximilian Church
Munich, DE

1 - 27, Wind Pressure Concert, 2021, 4k video, 38’ 25”, audio recording Attila Faravelli, video Davide Pompejano and Silvia Hell, editing Davide Pompejano, En Plein Air, Munich

Wind Pressure Concert
For diverse orchestra, audience and fine dust particles
by Silvia Hell
in collaboration with Frida Split and Nicola Ratti and musicians from Embryo and the Express Brass Band
curated by Emily Barsi

Director Frida Split
Trombone Marja Burchard
Percussion Fabricius Burkhard
Trombone Teresa Gruber
Tenor sax Michele Lorenzini
Trumpet Gergely Lukács
Soprano sax Maasl Meier
Tenor sax Gonçalo Mortagua
Tuba, Flute Wolfi Schlick

The score of the Wind Pressure Concert consists of the data on fine dust particles between the years 1980 – 2020, which Silvia Hell researched and collected from the public archives in Munich and Milan.
The data is divided into PM 2.5 and PM 10, and reflects the daily levels of pollution over that forty-year timespan.

The score branches out, triggering a quantum effect on the two composers, from them to the musicians and passers-by, who are also involved in the performance.
Frida Split conducts the musicians using the improvisational ‘Conduction’ method.
The audience interaction is guided by Nicola Ratti’s score, with the help of their smartphones.

Thus, three scores emerge and resonate with one another. All refer to the scientific data but also deviate from it to build momentum on various scales: a linear and progressive chronology fluctuating between the chaotic and the cosmic.

En Plein Air
A Kunstraum München guest project
In collaboration with ‘On Air’ Carico Massimo
www.enpleinair.de
kunstraum-muenchen
In cooperation with VARIOUS OTHERS 2021
EN PLEIN AIR 2021 is funded by the City of Munich Department of Arts and Culture and the Kunstraum München.
We kindly thank the Casa degli Artisti in Milan and Sclupet for their generous support.

Wind Pressure Concert, 2021
Saturday 16 October, 6 pm
Silos Granario, Port of Livorno, IT

1 - 6, Wind Pressure Concert, 2021, HD video, 56’ 19”, recorded, edited and masterised by Juan Pablo Macías 2021 [extract]
7 - 12, Wind Pressure Concert, 2021, Silos Granario, Livorno. Projection of Juan Pablo Macías’s work skyscapes_on cloud-life. Ph: Iacopo Seri

by Silvia Hell
Piano performance by Marco Lenzi
With an introduction to the concert by Silvia Hell and Marco Lenzi
+ happening by Iacopo Seri

Wind Pressure Concert is a concert for piano and particulate matter conceived by the artist Silvia Hell, performed and interpreted by Marco Lenzi in the Silos Granario in the Port of Livorno, recently reopened to the public.

In a sort of space-time short circuit, a composition centred around air will be experienced.

The Wind Pressure Concert score concerns the concentrations of particulate matter, PM 2.5, recorded in the air of Livorno from 2008 to 2020. The data, which may be consulted publicly, reflect the daily average values of airborne dust and come from the historical Arpat archives.

The regulations adopted to fight pollution foresee thresholds and limits not to be exceeded on a daily and annual basis, but the way these are communicated varies between the different geographical areas examined.

The score uses this ‘discrepancy’ as a source of potential for the musician Marco Lenzi, and will consist of a chronology of PM 2.5 concentrations recorded at the station closest to the port of Livorno – via Carducci – from 2008 to 2020, with two different air-quality interval systems: one determined by Arpat Toscana and the other by Arpa Lombardia. Lenzi freely encodes the score and performs it on the piano.

“The atmosphere of Livorno anticipated this event from afar, accompanying me to Milan and elsewhere. I immersed myself in Juan Pablo Macías’s work skyscapes_on cloud-life, which updated On Air every day, and on this occasion a collaboration was created, projecting the archive of Livorno skies during the concert at the Silos Granario.” — Silvia Hell

ON AIR Carico Massimo
curated by Juan Pablo Macías & Alessandra Poggianti
in collaboration with Eva Brioschi, Valentina Costa, Iacopo Seri and Daniela Tazzi
a project part of AIR TIME
in partnership with the Little Bit Festival, Livorno
and with En plein air Gastprojekt des Kunstraum München
recorded, edited and masterised
by Juan Pablo Macías 2021

Wind Pressure Concert, video, score and track, ON AIR - a project by Juan Pablo Macías & Alessandra Poggianti for Carico Massimo

Air, 2023
Spazio Leonardo, Milan, IT

1 Air, installation view, Spazio Leonardo, Milan, IT, 2023. Photo: Silvia Hell
2 - 11, Air, installation view, Spazio Leonardo, Milan, IT, 2023. Photo: Filippo Romano
2, 4, 5, Air Milano 1987_1996, O3 NA2 SO2 CO O3 NA2 SO2, 2023, UV inkjet print on polyester fabric, 170 x 340 cm
6, Air Milano 2007_2016, PM10 C6H6 PM10 C6H6 BC, 2023, UV inkjet print on polyester fabric, 170 x 340 cm
8, 9, Air Milano 2018_2022, PM2.5 CO BC, 2023, UV inkjet print on polyester fabric, 170 x 340 cm
12, Antonio Giuranna, Air Milano 1987_2022, SO2 NA2 O3 CO PM10 C6H6 PM2.5 BC, 2023, audio, 5’02’’. Listening with headphones is suggested


For the second event of 2023, Spazio Leonardo is pleased to announce Air, an exhibition by Silvia Hell (*1983, Bolzano) and Antonio Giuranna (*1981, Taranto), which transforms data concerning air quality in Milan into a dialogue between visual art and music.

“In 2008, the European Parliament produced a reference text for the monitoring of air quality. I decided to approach this document as if it were a song. Instead of reading it, I began singing it repeatedly over blues backing tracks. I am interested in the rhythm of information, the possibility that a regulation can imprint on an emotional substrate. The emphasis was placed on the importance of public information on air quality and making data publicly available. I decided to use this raw material and transform it into a visualisation to reveal a sort of air score.” (Silvia Hell)

Air is an ongoing project started in 2018, for which Silvia Hell has analysed air quality data in Milan from 1987 to the present obtained from the historical archive of Arpa Lombardia – the regional agency responsible for environmental protection. Such analysis led to the mapping of the concentration of eight pollutants in the air of the city.

These data are then transformed into a musical composition, produced in collaboration with composer Antonio Giuranna, who parameterised the data and translated them into music using various electronic instruments. The musical score is visually reproduced on large coloured canvases displayed at the Spazio Leonardo gallery, creating a synergy between sound, sign and data. The melody will be diffused through audio speakers on the day of the opening and visitors will be able to download it during the time of the exhibition via a QR code.

The exhibition will also feature works from the Air series produced in 2018, made on player piano rolls from the early 1900s. The different musical compositions from the player piano rolls overlap with the artist’s “air score”. A system of seven colours is arranged along the length and height of the surface, incorporating a flow of information representing the values of seven potentially harmful substances present in the air of Milan and recorded by Arpa between 2008 and 2017.

Exhibition:
26 June 2023 – 29 September 2022
Monday to Friday: 09:00 am - 6:00 pm
Spazio Leonardo via della Liberazione 16/a, 20124 Milan

1 - 8, Wind Pressure Concert_score_for Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack Lichtspielapparat_Aria Milano 1972 - 2017 / Aria Bolzano 2008 - 2017, 2019, 8 lambda prints on duraclear, 38,6 x 150 cm each, Museion Collection

1 - 13, Wind Pressure Concert, 2021, score, print on paper, 8 parts, each 10 x 15 cm, En Plein Air, Munich

1 - 8, Wind Pressure Concert, 2021, score, print on paper, 8 parts, each 33 x 48 cm, Silos Granario, Livorno

Silvia Hell © 2024 P.IVA: 02768790210