A red dress suspended in a room, displayed for the occasion, the same one worn by her hologram: it is the first encounter that the public will have in Pesaro with Marina Abramović. The second will be hypnotic, virtual, brilliant and only the last one, on June 18th, in the flesh.
Until then, Pesaro Capital of Culture 2024 hosts The Life at the Pescheria Visual Arts Centre, the surprising immersive work which for the first time in the history of art, and a national premiere in the city of Gioachino Rossini, offers a performance in a double dimension: physical and digital. Produced by Tin Drum with direction by Todd Eckert, the work (mixed reality) offers a virtual experience in a real physical space, the last frontier of art exhibitions. But if the event actually represents, albeit augmented, an astonishing encounter with her hologram, it is on June 18th that the public will be able to meet the Serbian artist: she will materialize in presence at the Rossini theater for a public debate with Eckert.
Presented in Pesaro by Daniele Vimini, deputy mayor and councilor for Beauty, by Agostino Riitano, artistic director of Pesaro Capital of Culture, and by the director, The life reflects on the power of art as an intangible force, the result of the meeting between the artist and the energy of the people involved.
«This is the day where we reap the fruits of a lot of work – says Riitano –, but above all it is the day in which one of the utopias present in our program takes shape, I like to say it is located within the city. An artist like Abramović will give us the opportunity to tell citizens about our deepest desire, that is, to think about the possible scenarios of a relationship between art and technology. A debate that already started in the 1990s and which has recently taken an extraordinary turn. What is technology in the language of art? It was born precisely from the artist who made his own body and presence a field of incredible research and exploration, so much so as to influence the aesthetics of the history of art, the desire to think about the dematerialisation of the body and the possibility of creating with it no longer and not just a relationship, but a connection. With mixed reality performance we can experience content other within our reality.”
For director Eckert, Pesaro’s version is «the best version of the opera that we managed to achieve. We have already presented the project in London, Germany, Los Angeles, but what you will see here is unique: we will also present behind the scenes. For the first time, the red dress worn by Marina will be displayed to the public. The public will also be able to immerse themselves in two panels with six shades of red specially chosen by the artist. What matters is not so much the technology used, even if it was the cornerstone of the project, but the connection created with people. A hundred years from now, when everyone who knew Marina Abramović is dead, there will be people who will watch The Life and hopefully feel that sense of connection, of human experience. That’s really the point of the play.”
For councilor Vimini, «art that creates an unprecedented space between real and virtual, goes beyond the boundaries of in-person performance and creates an authentic human connection between artist and spectator».
“The life”: what we will see
When it debuted in London it caused quite a stir: it was in fact the first major mixed reality exhibition ever presented to the public. Since then it has toured the world. What we will see in Pesaro is a version lasting 19 minutes: the public is equipped with a headset and a transparent visor at the entrance and can move around an empty room. Abramović, in her red dress and dark hair tied back, walks, stretches out an arm. He passes through space, appears and then disappears in a cloud of blue pixels. Between light and shadow, serious and light, he materializes and dematerializes within a circular perimeter.
Information and tickets
The life is open to the public every day from 5 to 18 June, from 10am to 11pm in the spaces of the Pescheria Visual Arts Centre. Entrance is available by reservation through the vivaticket.it website or at the Centre, Tipico Tips and Rossini theater ticket offices. Tickets for the conversation open to the public between Marina Abramović and Todd Eckert, scheduled for June 18th at 9.30pm at the Rossini, are available from June 12th on vivaticket.it and in the sales points mentioned above.
