htcos2010-2014

Come here and give me a hand, my boy!Once upon a time, long ago...

an old monk livedin an orthodox monastery.

His name was Pamve.And once he planted a barren tree

on a mountainsidejust like this.

Then he told his young pupil,a monk named Ioann Kolov,that he should water the treeeach day until it came to life.

Put a few stones there, will you?Anyway, early every morning

Ioann filled a bucketwith water and went out.

He climbed up the mountainand watered the withered tree

and in the eveningwhen darkness had fallen

he returned to the monastery.He did this for three years.

And one fine day, he climbedup the mountain and saw

that the whole treewas covered with blossoms!

Say what you will, but a method,a system, has its virtues.

[taken from the ‘Sacrifice’ directed by Andrej Tarkovskj, 1986]

pictures and textsMarco Marzuoli and Alessandro Sergente

curatorshipDomenico Spinosa

layoutMarco Marzuoli

HOW TO CURE OUR SOULMARCO MARzUOLi + ALESSAndRO SERgEnTE

As per its title, Conversation, 2011-2014, is a throughout the time work which htcos has recently presented to the public. Besides time imagined as xρόνος, the main role is played by its course. Htcos operates on time’s marks, on its transits which leave full ruts on the surface, drawing existential descriptive trajectories to be fol-lowed with care. The conversation means not only a verbal interaction, but mainly reveals a mutual recognition in which understanding one another is a minor issue. The author seeks a synthesis between the deed of seeing and seen, and it struggles with the opacity of the images in which to discern and discern each other becomes the ultimate labour of Hercules.We are the spectators of images chasing their natural fading away and the bond of the eyes looking at each other is magnificently accomplished.There is no more a temporal partition to separate clearly a before and after, we only remain aware of the time of the image. As a matter of fact, reality which is not yet examined by speculative lens, the diversity of each human being, which we call individuality, is linked to the evidence and its given only by an intuition of our imagination.Loose from any superstructure need, we move guided by the lines which tell the πάντα ῥεῖ of the human thin-gs, put together in this mosaic which, perhaps involuntarily, becomes an homage to the Cinema. And it is in its becoming image that the perceived reality shines no more for its truthfulness nor kindness, but exclusively for its beauty.

Domenico Spinosa

COnVERSATiOn2011-2014

Using the interaction between sound and image, Conversation, 2011-2014 explores a universe of spontaneous communicative intersections, the result of dialogues between two people deprived of basic relational super-structures, so close to improvisation as far from the analytical projects (the person portrayed in the video is suffering from alzheimer’s). The work is in a dimension of contemplation away from the reality, where the imper-fection plays a decisive role in his humanity.

Conversation consists of videos, photos and music.

Never again will such moments be possible for me.But of late I have been increasingly able to catch,

if I listen attentively, the sound of the sobs which I had the strength to control in my father’s presence

and which broke out only when I found myself with Mamma. In reality their echo has never ceased;

and it is only because life is now growing more and more quiet round me that I hear them anew,

like those convent bells which are so effectively drowned during the day by the houses of the street that one would suppose them to have stopped,

until they ring out again through the silent evening air.

[taken from the ‘Swann’s Way’ written by Marcel Proust, 1913]

Sometimes they come back again and finally we provide them the right space. But it just lasts for a while, since we are distracted by our current time. They are the “voices from the inside”, recalling the title of a well-known comedy written by Eduardo de Filippo, the ones that we hear but we don’t let them flow to the outside world. They are a safe and silent refuge that recreates new settings and unexpected atmospheres. Semetimes they are just a shelter, that like a movie, is “such stuff as dreams are made on”. Then we come into a dimension without present, where every moving is just for its own sake, becoming an endless metamorphosis. On the one hand, the following metaphysical criterion is valid: being separated from the experience of life; on the other hand, material evidence is so immediate and meaningful that it is unique and extreme at the same time. Every single moment, flowing one into the other thus shaping the succession of landscapes in our inner memory, is situated one after the other, in a direct sequence without moments of transition. Their connection is not acciden-tal. Everything is possible, only when the category of possibility is not opposed to the one of reality. Possibility and reality are on the same level, they are the same. Everything seems to be more liveable and imminent. The research behind this video installation, by Marco Marzuoli, invites us to listen to our voices from the inside, to turn into tabulae rasae.

Domenico Spinosa

TABULA RASA2010-2012

The Tabula Rasa project describes a tangible outcome that results from an audio-visual self-analysis aimed at the elimination of surplus and the rediscovery of identity. An indelible memories through opposition and denial of basic communication rules. First release of Marco Marzuoli, the album is divided into two movements: in communicability and Silence. The first of the two parties is presented as an uncompromising electroacoustic improvisation, where drones and melodies rarefied descend into a funnel fossil and noisy. The second, however, paints an intimate and metaphysical interior landscape, in which sound reminiscences and ambiental suites are alternated in a dark and silent atmosphere. The composition, in the balance between improvisation and layers music, intersects in its materic distribution, the use of laptops with primitive and essential bass lines (as well with recording ghost-fields). How To Cure Our Soul is self-referential in its reductionism and at the same time devoted to the minimalism.

Tabula Rasa is made up of audio visual installation and music.

iMMOBiLiTY2012-2013

diptych of audiovisual investigation within contemporary existential immobility, where nature is the signifier of a socio-psychological research.

1. A praying mantis moves in a garage-workshop like in a desert battlefield. So clumsy as it is disturbing, in-spects old woodworking tools, objects, melancholy decaying residues of quiet everyday life .2. Caged in difficulty in a messy bathroom, two small tortoises are incapable of any movement. Their own phy-sical conformation and ineptitude, as well as the surface, suppress any attempt to step forward.

Biography

Htcos is an audio-visual duo based in Abruzzo (italy); founded in 2010 by Marco Marzuoli and later joined by Alessandro Sergente. Their research focuses on the analysis of the interaction between input and feedback (between people, with the environment and the identity), using languages like free drone music and video art.Both of them graduate at the Academy of Fine Arts, the duo is author of a universe of images in balance betwe-en reality and unconscious, stimulus and spontaneous reaction, sounds and visions. Through a personal use of digital and analog instruments, without temporal distinctions between vintage and contemporary, htcos reflects about philosophy, landscapes (natural and human) and communication, producing conversations published as videos, music and photos.Their audio-visual works have been presented in italy and Europe in exhibitions, happenings or live sets.Htcos is the acronym of How To Cure Our Soul.htcos.it

Visual Works

Tabula Rasa (2011, Museolaboratorio) dVd-R/digital curated by domenico SpinosaiMMOBiLiTY 1: Tension (2012, self released) digitaliMMOBiLiTY 2: immobility (2013, self released) digitalConversation (2014, self released) dVd-R/digital/inkjet print on paper curated by domenico Spinosa

Sound Works

Tabula Rasa (2012, Setola di Maiale Records) Cd curated by Stefano giustConversations (2014, demo) digital

Exhibitions

2014Supermarket Art Fair 2014, curated by Enzo de Leonibus - Kulturhuset @ Stockholm (SW) (fair)Tabula Rasa, curated by Michela Morelli – Teatro di Figura Umbro @ Perugia (iT) /w Lorenzo Senni and Valeria Pierini2013Cavalli & Whisky, curated by Marco Taddei – Libreria K @ Pescara (iT) /w Maicol & MircoAbout a Wall, curated by Enzo de Leonibus - Museolaboratorio @ Città Sant’Angelo, Pescara (iT) /w Alessia Armeni and MUSight 2013, curated by Enzo de Leonibus - Museolaboratorio @ Città Sant’Angelo, Pescara (iT) (group)2012Tempo Riflesso, curated by Carlo nannicola - Comune di Castelvecchio Subequo e Comune di Corfinio, L’A-quila (iT) (group)Un_structured sounds 2012, curated by Antonio Pio Lancellotti – CSOA Ex Mattatoio @ Perugia (iT) /w Patrizia Oliva and Mario ConsiglioTabula Rasa, curated by Enzo de Leonibus - Museolaboratorio @ Città Sant’Angelo, Pescara (iT) (solo)Tabula Rasa, curated by Pepi Birliraki - House of Culture @ Rethymno, Crete (gR) (happening)Tabula Rasa, curated by Luca Mazzoleni - Rifugio Franchetti 2433m altitude @ gran Sasso d’italia (iT) (hap-pening)

Press

2014Battiti 23/04/2014 – nicola Catalano, Radio 3, on air (iT)découverte Twitter S31-2013: htcos - Fabrice Allard, EtherREAL (FR)Rumore #253 - Vittore Baroni, Rumore (iT)HOW TO CURE OUR SOUL, Tabula Rasa - Michele giorgi, The new noise (iT)2012Album del giorno - Marco Verdi, Rockit (iT)AMn Picks of the Week – Mike Borella, Avant Music news, 2012 (US)AinT EASY - dingus, 2012 (US)

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