Italian composer Alessandro Bosetti presents the U.S. premiere of Plane/Taléa, a four-channel electronic sound work stemming from his interest in vocal and polyphonic music. In this special concert, performers wear headphones and respond to spoken instructions from the artist. These instructions (e.g., questions to answer, or directions to imitate a sound, to reveal a secret thought, etc.) are triggered by algorithm in an ever­-changing geometric configuration.

Plane/Taléa expands and exposes single voices within a granular polyphony, where small details and tonal inflections combine in textured chorus. Guest performers include Blair Bogin, Alex Bradley Cohen, Hannah Gamble and Jesse Malmed.

“It is difficult to let people do what they do not want to do. If they do not want to do it they will probably not do it. That’s the way it is. In the same way, once you have divided yourself into many tiny individuals, tiny particles of self, it’s difficult to let such particles obey, to let the group function as a flock of notes. Eglisak the organ player may come to help, he may gather fugitives, the tiny particles of voice. Some voices are taking off—unseen—towards the South, some others swallow flakes of wood. Others are attempting to climb ropes hanging from the ceiling. Just a few have remained on the floor to play with cubes of language. They build ephemeral grammars.”

Alessandro Bosetti (b.1973, Milan, Italy) is a sound artist, composer and performer, whose work focuses on the musicality of spoken language, often including translation and misunderstanding in the creative process. Field research and interviews build the basis for his abstract compositions, along with electroacoustic and acoustic collages, relational strategies, trained and untrained instrumental practices, vocal explorations and digital manipulations. He has produced a vast body of award-winning text-sound work, featured in live performances, radio broadcasts and published recordings throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Projects include African Feedback (Errant Bodies press), the interactive speaking machine Mask Mirror (STEIM, Kunstradio), and an ongoing project on linguistic enclaves in the U.S. He is currently based in Marseille, as artist-in-residence at the GMEM Centre National de Création Musicale.

Alessandro Bosetti has appeared twice before at Lampo. In February 2008 he presented the sound/video work 29 and performed voice pieces using what was his new Mask Mirror scheme. Bosetti made his Chicago debut at Lampo in December 2005, when he premiered The Listeners, a sound/video project completed in the days immediately preceding his concert. Since its premiere, Bosetti has screened The Listeners around the world, including as part of Metropolis: Counterpoint Berlin at Carnegie Hall, New York City.

Presented in partnership with the Poetry Foundation