X-Scape Interview to Martux_m

Question: _Could you tell me about how this project was born: how did the concept of the live show come about and how did you arrive at the production of the DVD?

M.M. The X-Scape project comes from a long gestation period, everything always starts from a desire; a desire to break free from a language and we are within the language and the language creates faults, it is made only of black holes, of faults. That’s where the desire for X-Scape comes from, to let the signifiers speak, to let them go, to be spoken by them, to finally be out of the obvious. “Desire” as the secret of seduction, because for something to be fulfilled, it must have time to be missed. Bringing forth the image, that’s the power, the impact of copulation. And from this, my first audiovisual work entitled X-Scape was born, with the precious collaboration of Mattia Casalegno, who enriched and exceptionally developed this, my first project. Finally building an art that is unbreathable, that is no longer consolatory, that no longer has the harlot mask of consolation, that no longer has the decorative and being able to do this, you have to forget who you are, lose every identity, leave every premise in oblivion. Then emerges the essential relationship, the complicity of sight with listening, to search for what is the object of oblivion of memory, of an imaginable in the imagination, of an unthinkable in thought. The next idea after all this was to produce a DVD, a re-writing of all the work done in live performances, so no longer forms, but cinematic relationships; no longer subjects, but dynamic identifications without subject, which constitute collective concatenations, a plan of longitude and latitude, which opposes a plan of organization, creating interludes that are focal points of creation, to be a stranger in one’s own language.

Question: When did your interest in concrete music begin?

Answer: It started around the 1990s, a time when my musical experiences (rock, jazz, etc.) had reached a point of stagnation. I remember with what naive enthusiasm the discovery of concrete music revived the possibility of continuing in a new and dynamic form an experience with the world of sound through a completely new modality. The relationship with recording had been limited for me up to that moment to the documentary form of a sound event; from that moment on, however, recording was that “formless principle” which, when manipulated, assembled, and fixed on a medium, became a “body” that imposed itself in a hidden, transcendent compositional principle that is not audible in and of itself.

Question: Could it be said that it is during live performances, in front of an audience, when you have to develop all this sound arsenal that you use freely… Moving music where experimentation hovers, using objects, electric motors, and conventional instruments to achieve a wide range of timbres and intensities structured in a complex way. Is this where your interest lies?

Answer: Exactly. It’s the state of what needs to be called “complicatio” against “simplificatio.” The sound-bodies are languages because essentially they are “flexion” the bodily flexion liberated from all that ordinarily hides it. Bringing forth the image, that’s the power, the impact of copulation. Articulation lines, segmentarity, layers, territoriality; but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization, comparative speeds, viscosity, contractions, spasms, precipitation, and rupture, action on bodies of invisible forces. Suspended sound-bodies in hesitation develop all the senses of disjunction. Disjunctive articulation, where sound-bodies contain a hidden language, the most abstract argumentation.

Question: What do you think about the gatherings of sound artists who come together in a certain space to discuss experiences and give electroacoustic concerts, sound art, electronic music, and new music? To what extent do these help to make future projects more concrete?

Answer: I do not believe in these kinds of meetings; in my opinion, these exist only for convenience reasons. All these definitions constitute a formalization, slogans only for power apparatuses. The problem is not in defining or cataloging what one is doing; in this way, one favors the managers of the show “the gravediggers of art”. It is necessary to abandon every form of solid concept: electroacoustic, sound art, new music, etc., they are solid binary definitions, one must proclaim the death of every form of domination that seeks to give order and authority of one over the other. It is necessary to uproot every root and build sexed paths in dislocation of every discipline, of every method.

Question: With which people do you feel comfortable when sharing the stage? Do you think that involving the listener is fundamental in your concerts?

Answer: Sharing the stage is sharing a space of life, a space of time. It is a space-time where to create a “disjunctive articulation”, hence an essential relationship emerges, where to exercise our active conduct towards reflexes, echoes, and doubles, to collect them and to arouse them, to bring about a multiplicity. Clearly, in a concert, the relationship with the listener constitutes a fundamental concatenation, a necessary reason.

Question: Could you tell us about the collaborations in your projects? What role do they play?

Answer: What matters in projects is not in working together, but in working in the middle, because for something to happen there must be a difference in potential, two levels, and then something happens. It is not about having the same ideas, but understanding each other without needing to explain oneself. It’s about having a common language, or better yet, having a pre-language in common. A parallel evolution, to produce something that is found neither in one nor in the other, to achieve a multiplicity. Deterritorialize one in the other, reinvent alterity, in a relationship of fascination, I stole from them as I hope they have done with me.

Question: What is the future of your upcoming releases? Will you continue to be faithful to your electroacoustic and experimental concepts?

Answer: We are closing in these days a new CD together with Danilo Rea, it is a work in duo, electronics, and piano, and it will be published by Musica per Roma. It is a work that I believe in a lot; it is a meeting between melody and electronics. It is a work that has required a lot of energy from us, but we are very satisfied with the result. You ask me if I will remain faithful to my electroacoustic and experimental concepts; with the concept of fidelity follows that of betrayal, and I feel like telling you that empiricists are not theorists but experimenters, they never interpret, they have no principles, every experimenter must be a traitor, who does not seek something to conquer or an established order, but to create, then disappear, become unknown, lose one’s identity, one’s face, seek the anomalous, which is always found on the border, on the edge of a chasm.