HA HANNAH ARENDT

HA - a project by Roberto Paci Dalò
Site: www.haarendtrieste.tumblr.com

Developed by Roberto Paci Dalò (artist) and Nicole Dewandre (scientist)

• Interactive sound-video installation
• Radiowork
• Performances
• Concert
• Workshops

The words of Hannah Arendt - her voice - create the matrix within which the work takes place: an interactive sound and video environment divided into three thematic areas that correspond to the three key concepts enunciated by Arendt in his book The Human Condition: labor, work, action. These words are intertwined with the voices of the people the artist encounters in the course of the work, visiting the three geographical places that compose it: Barcelona, Sarajevo, Trieste.

The installation is cartographic and sees the presence of spots with three-dimensional models equipped with sensors (proximity, light, etc.) activate the entries from the database revealing the voices of the people met during the journeys. Visitors thus become the soloists of the opera by activating themselves the voices that come from different times over a century.
Video mapping creates dynamic black and white visual environments that draw maps and installation paths.

The forest: Arendt's voice is intertwined with instrumental and electronic sounds and the other voices gathered in the case-study city. A multichannel and spatial composition, an environmental texture that creates the architecture of the acoustic and visual space within which visitors move.
HA is a transceiver station that receives and sends signals. As a POV shot where the house itself is the protagonist, through it we see the inhabitants.

Together with Nicole Dewandre the investigation of the texts of Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition) is developed and with other laboratories and Centers for Advanced Studies of the JRC (Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, Text Mining, Demolinguistics) are scanned migratory flows, demographies, use of words in social media, multilingualism by crossing data to get an image of the places chosen as case studies.

At specific times, live performances are scheduled inside the exhibition. These performances temporary connect the venue with the places where people were met and gathered their voices. The audio signal produced in performance is sent live to the places and a physical space where everyone is invited is simultaneously organized. It is therefore a return of the materials that after a long journey can come back home.
During the collection of materials in the 3 cities, workshops are also run by the artist together with Nicole Dewandre to allow a more articulated relationship with people and the local community. During the workshops have been created live radio programs on Usmaradio (usmaradio.org).

A radio work is produced by Ö1 Kunstradio (ORF Austria).
Place: ESOF2020, Trieste, 2020

Production: Trieste Contemporanea, Giardini Pensili, JRC Joint Research Centre - European Commission
Collaboration: Usmaradio, Ö1 Kunstradio
Support: Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia-Giulia