Berlin
19 June 2002
This project tries to establish relationships between two musical worlds which may at first seem very far from each other but in reality have the same intention. The composer SALVATORE SCIARRINO, Robin Rimbaud aka SCANNER, and ALTER EGO will work together on this project. Scanner will work on the SOUND of Sciarrino's compositions, which will be first played in their entirety and then "revised" through a deconstruction of the material.
With this in mind, Sciarrino himself will destroy the formal structure of his pieces by changing the direction, replaying sections, or even cutting sequences. "Scanner can manipulate my music through his imagination - wrote Sciarrino - I offer him my music so that it can be transformed by his hands"
Scanner.Scans.Sciarrino: extracts from a diary
The idea of realizing Scanner.Scans.Sciarrino was formed, with unusual simplicity and urgency, at the moment in which we discovered the world of Robin Rimbaud a.k.a. SCANNER. Assiduous and regular collaborators of Sciarrino's music, we were struck by the originality of this electronic artist whose world is light-years distant from that of Sciarrino but, at the same time, unusually close. The task turned out to be extremely hazardous, also because - for logistic reasons - we had no possibility of trying out our ideas with Robin in person but only by letter and email. The basic idea was obviously to entrust Robin with the sounds of three pieces of Sciarrino and ask him to make a sort of live remix which was, however, totally faithful to the composer's aesthetics.
What impressed us most during out first meeting with Robin at his London home was the total lack of interior decoration, a taste for essentiality which filters beyond the music itself and demands not so much the reduction as the ELIMINATION of the superfluous, with a great economy of means and a total control of form. Precisely what Sciarrino himself finished by doing in his own house at Città di Castello, replete on the contrary with a healthy disorder governed however with the strictness of an authentic artisan artist.
The solution of the problem was in the end provided by Sciarrino himself in his message of good wishes for the challenge. No Communication! Neither by Choice nor by Chance! That's the end of the matter. Any sort of interference might in some way or other endanger the total freedom of intention.
I will not conceal the fact that, before our first performance at the IUC in Rome, none of us had a clear idea of what might happen. Owing to an unfortunate series of negative coincidences (strikes, delayed flights, delays in the montage of the S service) we found ourselves totally UNABLE to establish a dialogue. Was this perhaps a sign of destiny? I do remember, however, that we rarely experienced such strongly emotions as we did for that concert. Only after several months, to the great satisfaction of both, did Scanner and Sciarrino meet each other at Palermo on the occasion of one of our concerts. In no way do we forget the importance which the presence of the D-Fuse meant for this project, that abbreviation which covers some brilliant English artists who gave a priceless contribution in preparing the visual and oneiric setting of this performance.
Alter Ego
"My music is a journey in silence, revealing an ecology of sound and thought. It is therefore dcidedly alternative to standard models. How could I not be open to any genre of music ? A few years ago I even composed for the Javanese gamelan. I also ask myself: who exposes contamination today, how did he live before ? It is life itself that leads to meetings and discoveries. Inside and outside oneself. I met the rapper Frankie HI NRG while recording something for the Militia. In the case of Scanner, my friends of Alter Ego have acted as intermediary and to date we do not yet know each other personally. It was I who wanted it to be like this: in this way Scanner can mix my music according to his own imagination and not according to mine. I offer him my music so that it is transformed in his hands."
Salvatore Sciarrino