Max Cooper - Palestrina Sicut (Official video "Fighters" by Quayola)

FIGHTERS - a film and sculpture by Quayola with music by Max Cooper, “Palestrina Sicut” - the final piece to be released from the ‘Seme’ audio-visual project, commissioned by Salzburg Easter Festival.

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Max Cooper:
“For Seme I was tasked with thinking about historic ideas and aesthetics coming from Italy. I set on the idea of “Seme” (seed) to link foundational aesthetics in science to other areas found in Italian culture: art, religious iconography, architecture, music, etc. It’s a big melting pot of ideas and form.

When I discovered Palestrina and tried integrating it into my music, I had a wow moment. It’s music that was created for the church, Holy music, but it carries a lot of the same messages of reflection and meaning that I often work with.

After many years following Quayola’s work I chatted to him about the project and was very lucky to find out he was creating something which fit the themes of the project I was also working on. So when he suggested turning the creative process into a film set to the music I was extremely excited, having been a fan of his work for many years. It’s an unusual music video project, and a special one, I hope you enjoy it.”

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‘Fighters’ is a film and sculpture by Italian multimedia visual artist Quayola for Max Cooper’s audio-visual project ‘Seme’ - the latest in the acclaimed musician, sound designer and creative vast portfolio of work that explores the foundations of nature and society.

The short film impressively captures the fusion of computer programming and classical Italian art, discovering historical aesthetics through a complex lens.

Quayola is an Italian artist who employs technology to explore the tensions and equilibriums between seemingly opposing forces: real and artificial, figurative and abstract, old and new. Constructing immersive installations, he engages with and re-imagines canonical imagery. His varied practice derives from custom computer software and includes performance, immersive installations, sculpture and works on paper. He has worked with composers, orchestras and musicians including London Contemporary Orchestra, National Orchestra of Bordeaux, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Vanessa Wagner, Jamie XX and Mira Calix.

Seme premiered within the iconic Felsenreitschule concert hall on 28 March 2024, followed by two nights at London’s Barbican Centre.

A truly creative alliance, Cooper and Quayola artworks pay distinctive attention to the relationship between various stimuli – the visual and the audible, all delicately explored through both the digital and the analogue formats.

‘Fighters’ showcases the harmonious potential of art and technology drawing inspiration from Michelangelo’s Captives (1510-1530), a series of never-completed sculptures which became emblematic of their expressiveness embedded in the exposed sculptural process.

Quayola’s sculpture is left unfinished, with the intent to document the aesthetics of the process itself, which becomes the true subject of both the film and the actual sculpture.

Fighters is a film about the algorithmic genesis of Quayola’s latest marble sculpture and the expressiveness of new robotic gestures, a chiselling visual performance that sees a robot take the lead protagonist - replacing the delicate touch of a human craftsman. It bridges digital and physical realms, sublimating robotic means and computational pathways into objects of contemplation, celebrating the intrinsic poetics of algorithmic logic and robotics precision, as well as the heritage of sculptural traditions, Carrara’s marble and the historical quarry itself.


CREDITS:

MUSIC
“Palestrina Sicut” by Max Cooper   / maxcoopermax   ‪@maxcoopermax‬
Composition / Production / Synths: Max Cooper
Additional Composition / Synths: Niels Orens Vocalist: Sarah Aristidou
Vocalist: Kim Sheehan
Additional production: Tom Hodge
Vocal Recording: Andy Ramsay
Additional Mixing: Aneek Thapar
Mastering: Chris McCormack
Management: The Wild Seeds
Label: Mesh

SCULPTURE
Produced by Quayola Studio in collaboration with Cave Corsi, Carrara
Concept & Design: Quayola   / quayola  
CAM Design/Programming: Andrea Santicchia
Robotic Simulation and Milling: Robotor / TorArt
3D-Scanning: Digital Reality Lab

VIDEO
Editing: Quayola, Thea Ferraro
Editing Assistant: Giulia Olivieri
Post-production coordinator: Sara Taigher, Ippolito Simion (So What Pictures)
Production: Maria Elena Brugora
Drone Operator: Isabella Andrei
Camera Operators: Laura Veschi, Marco Petracci
Fighters: Denys Sliusar, Georgi Angelov, Georgi Petrov
Marble Quarry: Successori Adolfo Corsi, Carrara

℗ 2024 Mesh © 2024 Manners McDade / Faber Music Publishing Limited

All video & audio copyright is owned by Max Cooper and Mesh - no use without permission