Marco Fusinato’s DESASTRES, curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, is an experimental noise project that synchronises sound with image being presented at the Venice Biennale at the Australia Pavilion from 23 April to 27 November 2022.
This durational solo performance as installation is performed live by Fusinato in the pavilion using an electric guitar as a signal generator into mass amplification to improvise slabs of noise, saturated feedback and discordant intensities that trigger a deluge of images. The resulting all-consuming experience is open for the audience to interpret and make sense of.
Originally from the Veneto region in Italy, Marco Fusinato’s parents migrated to Australia where he was born. He currently lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. Fusinato is a contemporary artist and noise-musician whose work takes the form of installation, photographic reproduction, design, performance and recording. DESASTRES is a culmination of his interests in noise/experimental music, underground culture, mass media images and art history.
Developed in Naarm/Melbourne during its extended COVID-19 lockdown, the work embraces all the associated frustrations, pessimism and turmoil. Fusinato, who was isolated at home and unable to access his studio during this period, says of the development of DESASTRES, “I’m interested in the tensions around opposing forces like noise versus silence, order versus disorder, the institution versus the underground, purity versus contamination. These binaries co-exist and in DESASTRES it’s that friction I want to maintain – not eliminate. I feel like these tensions are always rubbing up against each other and the interesting thing is how one deals with these agitations, with the contradictions. It’s that in-between state that I want to occupy.”
The Australia Council for the Arts is the Commissioner for Australia’s National Participation at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
For daily updates of DESASTRES follow @desastres_desastres on Instagram and for general news on the Australia Pavilion follow @AusAtVenice.