CAN REON Festival 2023

CARLES VIARNÈS & ALBA G. CORRAL
The artistic collaboration between the contemporary pianist Carles Viarnès and the visual artist Alba G. Corral is already a long-standing relationship. Forged in festivals such as Eufònic and confirmed in venues such as the Palau de la Música or Sónar +D, where they offered a unique immersive show, both together create a sensory universe that invites reflection on the relativity of time and where the beauty of the uselessness of art is explored. His creativity also merged into the video “Collige Virgo Rosas”, with music by Carles composed from the images generated by Alba. This 2023 they premiere a new collaboration around “Hyper_O”, the new album by Carles Viarnès based on Gregorian modes and where a singular and innovative instrument, the hyperorgan, takes center stage.

CARLES VIARNÈS
Halfway between minimalism and contemporary music, following in the footsteps of composers such as Górecki or Arvo Pärt, the pianist from Igualada Carles Viarnès combines solid classical training with touches of electronics and experimentation. Always with the piano as the protagonist, with references such as Nils Frahm, Max Richter or Hauschka, the music of Carles Viarnès draws cinematic and hypnotic landscapes, apparently static but in constant movement. An austere but emotional sound universe. Fragile and melancholic at the same time. Deep. Timeless. Touching. In 2023 he presents his new album “Hyper_O”, produced by Joan Pons (El Petit de Cal Eril) and which is based on one hand on Gregorian melodies and modes and, in terms of sound, on a singular innovation, the hyperorgan, instrument built in the Blancafort OM Workshop. It is the landing point of a discography that opens in 2012 with “Urban Tactus” (Repeater) and continues with a personal reading of the “Red Book of Montserrat” (Repeater, 2013). The next album, “Schematismus” (2016), was released internationally by the 1631 Recordings label. Then would come “Nun” (Bankrobber, 2019) and the EPs “Ecos” (2020) and “Iam” (2021). His music has also appeared in plays, stage productions, television series and films, as well as collaborating with numerous visual, dance and word artists.

ALBA G. CORRAL
Alba G. Corral, born in Madrid in 1977 and currently based in La Ràpita, is a visual artist, code developer and teacher. With a background in computer engineering, Corral has spent a decade creating art using the software, whether live or through video, digital media, or installations. Through different artistic practices she explores abstract narratives. Her name has become known through live audiovisual performances where she integrates coding and processing, in collaboration with musicians in real time. Within the framework of teaching, she teaches visual programming focused on designers and artists in different spaces, both in talks and workshops dedicated to creative code with open software tools (processing).

GENEVIEVE MURPHY


Genevieve Murphy is a composer and performer known to combine performance art/visual art with contemporary classical music. Dive into her playful, theatrical storytelling, in this specially adapted concert performance of her theater piece ‘I Don’t Want To Be An Individual On My Own’. Recalling a drama-filled birthday party from her childhood, Murphy expresses the emotions of every character in the story, using dance music, electronic pop songs and free improvisation. Her sizzling show is enhanced by her band featuring Andy Moor (guitar), Marta Warelis (synthesizers), John Dikeman (saxophone) and Henning Luther (drums).

Cia. MIQUEL BARCELONA


Miquel Barcelona has dance running through his veins. He is at once a dancer, a choreographer, a teacher, a project manager, a thinker, a singer, an actor and a writer. His piece Rojos is the result of a 2-year research on the postwar period of the Spanish Civil War, consisting of 15 immersions in the territory in search of memories of this period. On stage, his Miquel Barcelona company translates this research into contemporary dance, seeking to immerse itself in the memory of the singular space where it is performed.

rojos


A post-war period is a universal theme and common fact in the memory of all people, territories and sides. Essentially, the language of dance allows us to offer nonnarrative discourses that evoke collective imaginaries. After all this road travelled through this research that is still alive, and we can recognise this project as a way to listen, to learn, to repair and to make visible.
Since the contact with the territory is part of the nature of the project, we present the site specific version of rojos for nonconventional.

ARTISITC TEAM
Direction, concept and research:
Miquel Barcelona Palau
Management:
Biel Martínez Lorca
Executive production:
Tàndempro
Conceptual advice and graphic design:
Áurea Estellé Alsina
Musical composition:
Oriol Mula
Choreographic accompaniment:
Fàtima Campos
Vocal accompaniment:
Nacho Melús
Performers and choreographic collaborators:
Miquel Barcelona, Helena Gispert, Martí Güell and Bea Vergés

Marco Barotti is a media artist based in Berlin. After music studies at the Siena Jazz Academy, he began merging sound with visual art. His work is driven by a desire to invent an artistic language in which a fictional post-futurist era is expressed through kinetic sound interventions in natural and urban environments.
Within the Festival we can see his live soundscape The Woodpeckers. Robotic woodpeckers transform in real-time the invisible radiations used for mobile communication and wireless technology into audible and visible acoustic drumming patterns. The sonic result is an acoustic auto-generated composition in constant development and variation, induced by the mobile phones of the visitors walking around.

Credits:
The Woodpeckers is a project created and produced by Marco Barotti
Co-produced by:
In Situ, Lieux Public, Bildstörung Festival, La Strada Graz, Oerol Festival, Arts and Theatre Institute,
Funded by:
Ministry of Culture and Science of the Federal State of Northrhein-Westfalia, City of Detmold, SACD / Auteurs d’Espaces,
Supported by:
Phoenix Contact, Audio Ag, RME, Gigahertz Solutions, Dayton Audio
Text:
Pauline Doutreluingne
Many thanks to:
Pim Boreel, assistant
Anna Anderegg, conceptual advises

Multidisciplinary artist Cristina Lucas (1973, Spain) lives and works in Madrid. Often based on extensive research, her work analyses fundamental structures in politics and economics, thereby uncovering and exposing contradictory narratives. Her installations, video works, performances, drawings and photographs are often straightforwardly critical, but also serious, playful and humorous. Her themes range from the role of women religion the patriarchal system in society and the global supremacy of the West, to humankind’s ambition to dominate nature. Rather than looking for easy answers, Cristina Lucas compels us to ask the right questions.

HERWIG ILEGEMS
Herwig Ilegems (Belgium,1962) studied at the High Institute of Dramatic Arts in Antwerp and is a visiting professor at the Royal Conervatory in Antwerp, Belgium.
Ilegems is the author, director and art director of critical acclaimed tv-series such as ‘Duts’ and ‘Clinch’ (broadcasted by Belgian public tv-network VRT/Canvas).
His acting career spans dozens of plays, movies and tv-series.

Head to Head
Head to Head is a video installation in which Belgian actor and artist Herwig Ilegems tries to make close contact with animals: a rooster, a peacock, a goat, an ox, a donkey, an alpaca, an eagle owl and a water buffalo. In the end they come head to head. The actor looks the animal in the eye, not from a sense of superiority, but from a perspective of equality.