ROARS BANGS BOOMS - 7 Variations for Voice and Onomatopoeia (2013/2015)

"The variety of noises is infinite. If today, when we have perhaps a thousand different machines, we can distinguish a thousand different noises - tomorrow, as new machines multiply, we will be able to distinguish ten, twenty, or thirty thousand different noises, not merely in a simply imitative way, but to combine them according to our imagination."
from "The Art of Noises" Luigi Russolo, 1913

Thunder, Whistles, Booms, Grumbles, Snorts...: These onomatopoeic words recall the different sounds of the modern industrial landscape. As part of the Manifesto of Futurist Music "The Art of Noises" by Luigi Russolo, they are the starting point of this performance work: 101 years later I have written seven variations for human voice in which noise not only becomes a Leitmotiv in music, but it also turns into musical material itself.
I embody these noises, I hear them, I perceive them as urban soundscapes of the present, I transcribe these sounds in drawing and interpret them with my voice and with my body in order to reveal their beauty, while playing with the expectation and imagination of the audience.


3 May 2015
24 April 2015
23 April 2015
29 November 2014
24 May 2014
3-11 May 2014
3 March 2014
1 February 2014
24 May 2013

Special thanks to: Angélica Castelló, Burkhard Stangl




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Special thanks to: Petr Vrba




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Special thanks to: Martin Schulze

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The performance took place at the main exhibition space of the Museum FLUXUS+ in Potsdam, in frame of the sound performance event "Flumen Sound" with the participation of the Berlin-based composers Neele Hülcker and Stella Veloce

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"Flumen Sound" - Organised by Museum FLUXUS+ Potsdam
Special thanks to: Wendelin Büchler, Costantino Ciervo, Heinrich Liman


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The performance took place at "Die Bäckerei" in Innsbruck, a former bread factory now used as cultural center and concert venue.

I created an interdisciplinary performance including a reading of an excerpt from the "Art of Noises" of Luigi Russolo, as well as my vocal interpretation of 9 onomatopoeic words that the italian dancer Monica Gentile has performed with her body.
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MuseRuole Festival 2014 - Women in experimental music, Preludio curated by Andi Stecher
Organised by City of Bozen, in cooperation with Transart, Cinematograph, Die Bäckerei Kulturbackstube and Burp Enterprise
Artistic Director: Valeria Merlini






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At Errant Bodies I exhibited my large-format drawings as graphic transcriptions of the onomatopoeic words: each drawing is a gestural interpretation of one noise (thunder, whistles, booms, grumbles, snorts, ...). Also, I presented the recording of my vocal interpretation of a selection of 9 onomatopoeic words: For the live performance I am blindfolded so I interpret with my body and gesture the recording of my voice that I'm listening through headphones. The audience cannot hear what I'm listening, but observing my body in movement the audience can imagine or suppose each noise. Finally, after my performance the audience is invited to listen to the recording which is installed in the space.

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Curated by Brandon LaBelle












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"From Luigi Russolo's manifesto to industrial soundscapes of today" is the subtitle of this lecture/performance.
I read a letter addressed to the ghost of Luigi Russolo. After reading my letter, many small paper sheets with onomatopoeic words in Italian language (thunder, whistles, booms, grumbles, snorts, ...) are handed to the audience, who is asked to read aloud and freely interpret the words when indicated. While the audience interpret the onomatopoeic words aloud, we're all immersed in the industrial soundscape of Taranto.

A brief note on the participation of the Taranto's audience
The people have successfully participated to this performance even if some of them were not familiar with contemporary music or interactive art. Some people misunderstood the question "Please read aloud and freely interpret the words when indicated": instead of interpreting the onomatopeic words, some people just read aloud the words. So we had at some point several "SBUUUUFFAAA!" or "MORMOOOORII" or "BOAATIIII!" etc.


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Supported by: Goethe Institut Napoli, Kulturverwaltung des Senats Berlin - Internationaler Kulturaustausch, IfA - Ausstellungsförderung

Excerpt from "Letter to the Ghost of Luigi Russolo" (Alessandra Eramo, Taranto 25th February 2014)

"Dear Luigi Russolo,
I am at the University of Bari - Campus of Taranto, in a former church now used for meetings, symposiums and conferences. I know that you and your colleague Francesco Pratella provoked the masses with your call for emptying the conservatories, colleges, universities and academies to determine the closure and celebrate their funeral in order to give absolute freedom to musical studies. I'm sorry to tell you that after 101 years here in Italy, music continues to be taught the same way as before - if it is taught at all - because I heard that recently music education, as well as visual art education, was definetely eliminated from programs in public school. But I'm glad to tell you that your intuitions, your ideas and your work have been very, very useful for the renewal of Italian music. You brought some fresh air and your ideas have also built the base for the international avant-garde music from the 1950s to today. Your spirit is here with us today and I know you can hear us, as you have been able to listen to the new sounds of your time, the sounds of the new Italy from the early 1900 just in the beginning of the new industrial era.
(...)
I can confirm that your intuition, namely that noise can be considered as a component of artistic expression, has deeply penetrated into the poetic of musical exploration of sound in twentieth-century. The beautiful audience here with me in this room and also myself know very well the sounds and noises you have been talking about 101 years ago. In this sense we are already experienced with the Futurist Music. We find these sounds everytime we open the window, pointing our ear to the outside, when we walk on the streets, listening to the noises, to nice noises, to ugly noises and to unsupportable noises that surround us. In the city of industry. Or the industry of the city...depending on the point of view, the perspective, the experience or the geographic location. We have learned to listen also thanks to your Manifesto. While I am writing you this letter I am immersed in a multi-faceted soundscape: my fingers typing computer keys, a navy helicopter is flying over the buildings, a man* shouts "Maadameeee!" and he answeres himself "Whaaaat?". A car was just parked, an illegal parking assistant comes closer and moves the change coins in his hand, a scooter has just passed an elderly lady walking, the red and white chimneys of the steel plant are blowing smoke in the air, the neighbour's TV is playing the latest songs of Sanremo Festival**, a group of seagulls are screaming while flying over the sea, a small truck loaded with vegetables is stuck in traffic, a man sings neomelodic songs from Neaples, and then he sneezes. It all sounds pretty interesting, all worthy of a possible composition of Futurist music. But I wanted to ask you if all these sounds can be considered "futurist sounds" or "sounds from the industrial city". Do you think these sounds belong to any place? Or are they perhaps special sounds, unique, specific sounds from an industrial city? Maybe one of those beautiful industrial cities that you and your Futurists colleagues were deeply fascinated by? (...)"


*The man is called Aldo. All Tarentinians know him as the most famous heroin addict begging for money all the time and screaming around weird insults against the Holy Virgin.

**Most popular music Festival contest in Italy, dedicated to "Canzone Italiana" (Sanremo Italian Song festival)


Thanks to David Grollman for the translation

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Many small paper sheets with onomatopoeic words (thunder, whistles, booms, grumbles, snorts, ...) are handed to the audience, who is asked to read aloud and freely interpret the words when indicated. While the audience interpret the onomatopoeic words aloud, we're all immersed in the industrial soundscape of Taranto, based on sounds I recorded between 2008 and 2013, among others:
- screams of street children dancing techno music in Taranto Vecchia, one of the poorest area of the city
- drones of the ILVA's steel plant from the bay of Mar Piccolo
- fireworks during the celebration of Saints Cosma and Damiano's - waves on Mar Grande
- gunshots on Viale Liguria during Christmas time
- at Aragonese Castle, music of raising and lowering of the Italian flag by the Navy, including the music of Italian national anthem
- at Piazza della Vittoria, hundreds of sparrows in the trees, while old people sit on the banks and chat about the future

So I create a pecorino-cheese arrangement on a steel plate and I decorate it with handmade Italian toothpick flags. When the cheese arrangement is ready I offer it to the audience, so we eat together the delicious Sardinian cheese made of 100% sheep's milk. Savouring this first quality cheese is the happy conclusion of the performance, as a way to remind and transform a traumatic event which Tarentinians and myself have experienced in 2008 in Taranto: thousands of sheep were massacred because of the high dioxin level found in their milk.