'El alquimista impasible y su cine de fantasía', a tribute to Segundo de Chomón
The exhibition’s opening coincides with a LABvisiónica concert, featuring Normaa and Akasha + lo Super
Still of the De Chomón's film 'Adelante con la música'
This Friday, LABoral opens its exhibition Segundo de Chomón. El alquimista impasible y su cine de fantasía, [The Impassive Alchemist and his Fantasy Cinema] which pays tribute to experimental and independent cinema, yet not treating it as an alternative to mainstream cinema. Open until 23 May in the Centre of Art’s Sala de Columnas, the show is curated by the Asturian artist, Roberto Lorenzo (Audiovisionarte) who has set out, through the artwork of Segundo de Chomón, to define cinema from practices that tend to go against the norm, displaying a world of cinema that manifests itself in forms closer to painting, music or essays.
Segundo de Chomón (Teruel, 1871-París, 1929) was one of Spain’s pioneering directors of silent movies and dedicated his extraordinary imagination to the development of the new medium. He founded Spain’s first production company, Macaya y Carro, and a colouring and lettering workshop where he experimented with early scientific films.
In Spain, he was also the creator of the “Zarzuela” genre in cinema. Film director, expert in lighting and photography, special effects and developing, pioneer of fantasy and animation cinema, Chomón was one of the most important –and fascinating– personalities of the first 30 years existence of the Seventh Art.
This exhibition shows some of his films including: Le plonguer fantastique [Diver Fantasy], La maison ensorcelée [The House of Ghosts], Le spectre rouge [The Red Spectre], El hotel eléctrico [The Electric Hotel], Voyage sur Jupiter[A Trip to Jupiter], Une excursión incoherente [Traveler´s Nightmare], y Le troubadour,[The Troubadour] (set to music especially produced by Juan Prieto [Akasha] and Roberto Lorenzo [Rob Loren]). Also, the report Cinematógrafo 1900 [a tribute to Segundo Chomón] will be screened.
LABvisiónica CONCERT
On the same Friday as this inauguration, the Asturian duo, Normaa, Akasha + lo Super from Madrid will perform at the third session of LABvisiónica, a festival intended for people interested in New Media and its recent artistic creations. Both performances will take place in the Chill-out space at LABoral from 9 pm and entry is free.
Normaa (Asturias)
Eduardo and Raúl Acosta have been experimenting with distorted beats and searching for sound landscapes and experimentation for the last ten years. Hip Hop from Marseille and the groups NAP, Group Home and Infamous Mobb, initially inspired the duo and continues to have a big impact on them, and especially on the Normaa project. In 2003, Raúl and Eduardo formed a duo focusing on audio and video in equal parts. Normaa is an audiovisual project characterised by the live development of their actions, where malfunctions in contemporary society are a constant reference.
www.myspace.com/normalab
Akasha + lo Super (Madrid)
The Soundmarks project – the sonorous accompanying of classic silent film projections
With their experiment to accompany live the projection of classic silent films, Akasha + lo Super explore the identity links that exist between sound, music and the moving image and study the importance of sound design in cinematographic art, along with other audiovisual experiences.
Akasha believes that music in cinema is the ghost that accompanies the moving images, the audible projected shadow or the sonorous canvas that is able to instantly communicate with the other elements of cinematographic language; like a voice-over that communicates with all the times and spaces in a film. It is an expressive and structural component that functions as an essential tool in the discourse.
The world of silent movies seduces and attracts them as they think it connects the spiritual with the material, the abstract with the concrete and takes them back in time, even to immortalise it. Among others, they have created sound pieces for Frau im Mond (1929), [Woman in the Moon] by Fritz Lang (La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2001); Aelita (1924), by Yakov Protazanov (La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2005, Visionica-08, performed at the Auditorio de Oviedo [Oviedo´s Auditorium] (and at Vasaros Terasa, Vilnius Lituania 2009); and La Coquille et le Clergyman(1927), [The Seashell and the Clergyman], directed by Germaine Dulac, based on a screenplay by Antonin Artaud (La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2009 and La Tabacalera Madrid, 2010)
