Conversations interrogating our role as artists in a post-Situationist landscape on an overpopulated planet

The speculative-practical part of the “in absentia” work of our lab developed in talks. The series, proposed and moderated by Dierk Rosen and Vanessa Inggs, puts back in the air and on-air the thinking that is getting elaborated as we march on.

The name “Conference of Birds” was given observing that the voices of the participants on the Telegram channel — while discussing philosophy and artistic research methodology — mixed with ambient sounds through the acoustic speaker, and were recorded and broadcast on the radio. These recordings undergo a double transformation: the thinker/speaker lives in a connected world and does not perceive the place from which they are heard (the porch) except symbolically — through photos or social storytelling. Yet the voices, charged with the song of birds in May, are re-transmitted as an experimental radio program, colored by this metaphysical double reality: on one side the concentrated, relaxed atmosphere set by Dierk Rosen in the meetings, on the other the distinctly Cosian color of the ambient sound in the recordings.

“The Conference of the Birds” is also the name of a mystical and allegorical story by Farid ud-Din Attar, adopted by the Sufi confraternity and later by Peter Brook in the 1970s to illustrate his ideas on theater. The reference is dear to Federico Bonelli, who, noticing the context emerging from the actions in absence, identified both the place to speak (the porch) and the name. From the 8 conferences held during Trasformatorio, the porch itself took its name, now affixed on the project plaque donated by Vanessa Inggs as part of her contribution.

The recordings

All recordings are archived on Archive.org:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Trasformatorio+2021%22

• Conference 1 — Recording
• Conference 2 — Recording
• Conference 3 — Recording
• Conference 4
• Conference 5
• Conference 6 — Recording
• Conference 7 — Recording

some of the beautyfull posters that were made by Vee for the occasion of the broadcasts