sound performance for audioreactive stage
icaro is a site specific sound concept by Sonia Gasparini, performed in live electronics by Pierpaolo Ovarini. A stage innervated by contact microphones and light. Intended to collect and amplify the microscopic sound world of insects.
Since the dawn of time, humankind has chased the dream of flight, a vision of fragile celestial boundlessness, where willpower challenges the silent laws of nature. Icarus, driven by daring, melted his wax wings in the sun’s heat, all in the name of desire. Today, just as in the past, contemporary humanity, driven by the same ambition, challenges nature and its balance, dragging the natural world into an irreversible abyss. “Icaro” is a meeting point between design and experimental music, giving voice to insects through the amplification of their micro-sonic world. In the piece, unlike the Icarian man, the insects are not drawn toward the stage by the light of ambition, but by another deceptive sun—a light source that silently lures them. Thanks to a network of contact microphones embedded in the structure itself, the imperceptible sounds of their bodies—buzzing, wing beats, tiny movements—are captured and amplified, transforming into macroscopic sonic forms. By layering and modifying the temporal details of these sounds, Pierpaolo Ovarini’s performance will evoke a sonic and musical lens, capable of highlighting the invisible patterns of the insects, using digital tools for live sound manipulation. The stage, designed by Sonia Gasparini, is an eco-centric capsule, a sensitive environment able to resonate with these hidden sounds, making what is fragile and invisible a living presence—a poetic call to what human ambition destroys without listening.
Concept & Stage design: Sonia Gasparini
Sound Design & Live Electronics: Pierpaolo Ovarini
Photos: Michele Virgili
Technical Support: I Tesori dell'Alveare