A unique presence across contemporary performance and media art, Marco Donnarumma distinguishes himself by his use of emerging technology to deliver artworks that are at once intimate and powerful, oneiric and uncompromising, sensual and confrontational. Working with biotechnology, biophysical sensing, as well as artificial intelligence and neurorobotics, Donnarumma expresses the chimerical nature of the body with a new and unsettling intensity. He is renown for his focus on sound, whose physicality and depth he exploits to create experiences of instability, awe, shock and entrainment.
Continually evolving alongside his artistic practice, Donnarumma’s purely music projects have been published under various identities since 2000, including noise/industrial/idm project TheSAD (Smell the Stench, Sine3pm, Noise-Joy) and the bass/proto-garage Kuoyah (Frijsfo Beats). More recently, he collaborated with Fausten (Ad Noiseam) and Scald Process (Holotone), and is currently one half of dub/industrial/techno duo Dadub (Stroboscopic Artefacts, aquietbump).
https://youtu.be/kDWkDy3tyXM
FACTS:
1: Deeply inside, Western societies are hopelessly broken, but people have a hard time waking up to it and take action.
2: Activism has become an established hype, but those who actively resist are still kicked away like thrash.
3: Because of a serious damage to my hearing I use hearing aids. And this actually helped me understand ing and exploring sound in a whole new way.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
The infinite greed and self-isolation of the human being.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
When I was a kid I played the bass guitar in a cover band of Pantera, as well as some other band s. Then drifted onto producing drum’n’bass and hardtekno at raves in Italy, before starting with the experimental art I do now.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
Not sure about “all time”, but these are the favourite of my time.
Radiohead – Kid A
Rhythm & Sound
Boards of Canada – Boc Maxima
Pantera – Vulgar display of power
Giacinto Scelsi – Uaxuctum
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Cold weather, human warmth, collectivities, art & music, friction.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
I live here in Berlin. With nice weather a stroll in the farthest corner of Treptower Park is so simple and beautiful. When the weather is bad, I’ll head to Spektrum or Zukunft Kino for some good shows, beers and friends.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Something with my hand s, carpentry perhaps. Or else, be depressed.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
Dot Product – 2080 (Osiris Music)
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Pan Sonic (RIP Mika Vainio).
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Swans live. Saw them 5 times and every single time it was just perfect.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
It’s at the core of what I do. I try not to use it only as means, but rather to eviscerate the cultural aspects and anxieties that are embedded in it.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
Nope, only son. My family has always been very supportive; could have not done anything without them.
Marco Donnarumma will perform at Holzmund#5 at Urban Spree on 27th October 2017. Donnarumma is also a researcher at Universität der Künst in the field of body technologies, music and robotics. Check out his work below.
vimeo.com/86766860
Ominous | Marco Donnarumma
vimeo.com/86766860
from Marco Donnarumma on Vimeo.
