How can we translate music into design? How can we give graphic form to rhythm or silences? Music is the Heartbeat of Places it is Summer School 2024 led by Quim Marin as part of the first-level Master's degree in Visual Communication and Art Direction directed by Mauro Bubbico.
Nella previous edition, curated by Studio Mut, we had focused on the historic city centre of Catania.
This year 20 young designers – partly Sicilian, partly from the rest of Italy and Europe – tackled the local music scene to give life to a new series of posters, between analogue and digital.
In this workshop we will create an iconic piece of design: a poster – the most democratic of all designs – inspired by the local music scene.
– Quim Marin
To thoroughly understand the musical culture of an area it is necessary to start from its history and get in touch with its protagonists: Cesare Basile he transported us to the 1980s Catania punk and illustrated his musical evolution, which in recent years has led him to the rediscovery of dialect as an expressive form and as a sonic language. Giovanna Cacciola He retraced the history of the iconic Uzeda, milestones of Catania underground music scene, and the historical context that gave rise to them.
Between past and present, we have also turned our attention to contemporary festivalsstepped in Luca Recupero, creator and artistic director of the Marranzano World Fest, with a lecture ethnomusicological regarding the origin, diffusion and use of this fascinating instrument.
Turning towards the Syracuse coast, Enrico Gambadoro he presented OSS – Ortigia Sound System, whilst Germano Centorbi – Director, alongside Salvatore Peluso, of the Master's in Heritage Innovation and founder of Kadmonia – he ranged between Gisira Fest, La Barca of Ortigia and other events that unite music, performance and heritage rediscovery.
We then moved from theory to practice with the live electronic performance by Andrea Normanno and with the acoustic sets of Marco Castello and of the jacaranda.
From these ideas, several series of manifestos in which each participant designed the visual identity for a imaginary festival, in Catania and for Catania.
How can we translate music – or rhythm, or silence – into design?
– Quim Marin
To create the posters, some drew inspiration from city architectures to make fonts and typefaces; who from emotions evoked by a song, chromatically translated as in a synaesthesia; and again textures, landscapes, cultural contaminations, myths and legends.
The posters were then set up in a mini-exhibition on the terrace of the Accademia.
Participants: Valeria Battaglia, Toni Cancian, Giulia Carlino, Federica Antea Coppola, Carla Garipoli, Serena Lanzalaco, Eva Montesano, Luca John Nash, Alice Oriani, Morena Putrino, Costanza Raffa, Anna Carolina Robbiati, Gaetano Roselli, Martina Costa Bignotti, Andrea Giulia Aurora, Valérie Jaccod, Violante Salvatici, Anna Streitel, Fernanda Villari, Ming-E Yip.