[ sound installation ]
cell 37
In 1978 the former Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped and assassinated. An immediate expansion of the liberties given to the Italian security services followed, including a right to detain a person in “preventive arrest” to a period of up to 11 years without a trial. The new regulations brought the arrest of over 5000 people in Italy. On April 7th 1979 70 people were arrested, among them the radical Italian Philosopher Antonio Negri, who was allegedly accused of being a member of the Red Brigades and was attributed headlining the gang who kidnapped and murdered Moro. Despite his arrest he continued his philosophical investigation, dedicating himself to the study of Spinoza, Marx and Hegel. On Christmas Eve 25th of December 1980, Negri found himself in the midst of a prison revolt in the Trani prison. The wardens’ response was cruel and brutal. Negri, along with every other inmate, was severely beaten, and his property destroyed. Among the possessions now lost, Negri kept the drafts he has made for his next book, over which he has labored for the past five years. Legend has it that upon returning to his cell, beaten, bruised, he has sounded a cry that has caused all the other prisoners to delve into silence for a whole day. “Seeing everything ruined like that”, he told later “It ruins something deep inside of you”. While he remained in prison he has persistently published five philosophy books, which have granted him acknowledgement all around the world. In 83’ he was brought to trial with the accusation, based on his publications, of being “morally responsible” for the violence which seared in Italy at the time of Moro’s assassination. As a sign of protest Negri decided to run for the Italian parliament while still on trial, and on the elections held the same year succeeded in being elected, and was subsequently released from prison. During the time he spent outside the walls of the prison he has vigorously lectures against State Oppression. These subversive activities served as a cause for the parliament to vote in favor of lifting his diplomatic immunity, on a count of 300 against 293. Seeing the way things have turned, Negri has fled to France, where he has stayed in exile for 14 years. In his absence, he was indicted with all the charges of his accusation, and was sentenced to a punishment of 30 years in prison. In 1997, after a long and brilliant career in France - side by side with the great French philosophers like Deleuze or Derrida, while never overcoming his yearnings for his homeland, Negri was resolved to make a courageous step and decided to return to his own country, where, at the age of 64, he was once more put behind bars. Negri’s sentence was supposed to last until 2005. His struggle against the stupidity of corrupted state bodies, as well as his fight for freedom of thought and release from the tyranny of the state, has positioned Negri as a symbol for the struggle for freedom and an icon for the anti-globalization movement. The cry he has voiced that night, in Christmas of 1980, has turned into a symbol in its own right – “The Cry of Antonio Negri” and there are some who claim it is still heard wherever there are or were political prisoners and free thought is oppressed. The work presented here tonight is based on this cry as it echoes between the walls of this very prison. The cry was recorded separately in each room and every cell in this compound, then later all the recordings were super-imposed on one another to be played (more or less) simultaneously.
Eran Sachs
works as composer, improviser, sound-artist and curator in Jerusalem. Originally coming from a classical background, he turned his attention towards Metal and Modern music, and started performing at the age of 14. As an improviser Sachs has collaborated with Oren Ambarchi, Philip Jeck, Thomas Koener, Robert Piotrowicz, Anna Zaradny, John Vance, Marc Behrens, Achim Wollscheid, @c, Eric Boros, Sebastian Meissner and many others, mainly playing his self-developed system, the No-Input-Mixer, which he has been playing since 1998. He plays this machine regularly in the Doom-Dub-Noise outfit Lietterschpich, (whose album “I Cum Blood in the Think Tank” was recently described as “Noise album of the Year” by Aquarius Records in SF) and John Zorn's "Cobra" improvising ensemble in Israel. Recently, he toured the US with his Experimental Doom Duo “Cadaver Eyes”, playing alongside such artists as Ruins, Can’t (Jessica Rylan), Uz Jzme Doma and many others, and has performed in Europe alongside such artists as Philip Jeck, Chris Cutler, Audrey Chen, Marcus Schmickler and Leafcutter John to name but a few.
He has presented his works, lectures and compositions in such festivals as Sonorities (Belfast), Transmediale/CTM (Berlin), Festival for Jewish Culture (Krakow) and Theaterformen (Hannover), as well as spaces and platforms such as Sonic Square (Brusseles), Podewil, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Melkweg (Amsterdam), ITP-NYU “guest speaker”, Death By Audio (NY), Kulturbunker (Cologne), Muffathalle (Munich), Upgrade!, Sonic Process, Heara, Israeli Cinemateques (Israel) and many others. His work "Studio" with sculptor Eytan Ronel was awarded the Excellence Award by the NY International Fringe Festival. He also has collaborated extensively with sound artist Sebastian Meissner (Klimek, Random INC.), with whom he has recently released “Into The Void” (on Sub Rosa), a reflection on the old abandoned Jewish quarter Kazimierz in the city of Krakow. His works have been released on Mille Plateaux and Sub-Rosa, as well as various labels in Israel.
As a sound-artist his works tend fuse the sonic with the political, as in the case of "Yannun Yannun", which portrays the harassment of Palestinian villagers by fanatic right-wing settlers. He founded and managed the Yad-Vashem bookstore - the only holocaust dedicated bookstore in Israel.
READ: www.myspace.com/eransachs
SEE: play loud - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JS5B4U3lUs
play not loud-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2NYT2a2qm8
SOUND ART: http://no-org.net/artist.php?id=11
REMINISCE: http://sound.kein.org/whichwayout
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