Trento – In one of the most evocative historical places in the heart of the Alps, the music “to see” conceived by Brian Eno is pure magic for the eyes.
In Trento, in the evocative setting of Buonconsiglio Castle – the largest and most important monumental complex in the Trentino Alto Adige region – and, a few kilometers away, in the equally refined one of Beseno Castle – the largest fortified structure in Trentino-Alto Adige – as part of the “Brian Eno x Trentino” project, the British composer inaugurated the site-specific multimedia installations Three installations for Buonconsiglio And 77 Million Paintings for Beseno.

“Here, unlike what usually happens – explains Brian Eno – I worked a lot on places and spaces, from a small studio inside the Buonconsiglio Castle, thinking about what I’m interested in investigating, that is the relationship between music and space, and how music can “create a place”. Here, for the first time, I experimented with a new method: the long song, or the encounter between ambient music and voice ”.

Brian Eno | Photo: © Pierluigi Orler

And it is in fact by collecting the suggestions of the spaces of the Castello del Buonconsiglio, symbol of Trento, in the splendid spaces of the Giardini del Magno Palazzo, Cortile dei Leoni and Sala dei Vescovi, that the composer created the site-specific installation Three Installations for Buonconsiglio (visible from 19 August until 6 November), a theory of works conceived on the basis of the spaces that host them, transforming them into caskets of sounds and visions.
Positioned in strategic points of the castle, Eno’s works interact with the surrounding environments, accompanying visitors on a path that, superimposed on the museum exhibition one, offers a synaesthetic listening experience of great charm.

The journey begins on the ground floor of the castle, from the Giardini del Magno Palazzo, with the audio sculpture for the Giardini del Magno Palazzo. Conceived to generate a corner of tranquility in otherwise crowded places, the work, evolving in the course of construction, has gained outdoor spaces.
“The work – explains Eno – is characterized by three pieces that I composed for the occasion and that I“ imprisoned in three terracotta pots ”. The three unpublished pieces, through a cycle of notes and sounds in continuous evolution, project the visitor into an idealized quiet atmosphere.

On the first floor, four loudspeakers placed inside the Cortile dei Leoni diffuse into the space of the hanging garden Music for Courtyard of the Lionsaudio installation with original music composed by the artist specifically for the Buonconsiglio Castle.

Brian Eno, 77 Million Paintings for Beseno, Beseno Castle | Photo: © Pierluigi Orler

Finally, Face To Face is located on the third floor, in the Sala dei Vescovi. The work originates from a small group of photographs of real faces – 18 real people, each immortalized in a single photograph – and stimulates a reflection on the concept of “coming and going” linked to the cycles of life. Thanks to a specially developed software, the image transits slowly from one real face to another, generating a long chain of “new human beings”, in which people who have never existed really cross other human beings, at the rate of 30 per minute. second, giving birth to 36,000 new faces.

Castel Beseno instead becomes the scene of an authentic light painting on the East Walls. 77 Million Paintings for Besenospecific and expansive adaptation of Eno’s most popular artwork, 77 Million Paintings, is a spectacular large-scale audiovisual installation. The imposing walls of the castle become a “canvas” on which the composer, producer, visual artist who became famous as a founding member of the British band Roxy Music, creates the infinite visual combinations of his most famous work. Conceived as “visual music”, 77 Million Paintings it resembles a landscape of sounds and images in continuous evolution, born from Eno’s continuous research on light as an artistic medium and on the aesthetic possibilities offered by generative software. This musical installation undergoes an evolution in front of the public. And the public identifies it as a conventional painting, while aware that the same combination of images will never be repeated again.

Beseno Castle, between Trento and Rovereto

From today, August 19th, until September 10th, eight evening events to present the work to the public will be organized every Friday and Saturday. Under a starry sky, visitors can get lost among millions of combinations, paintings and music.

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• When art is ambient. Summer in Trento with Brian Eno