CARLA BERTOLA & ALBERTO VITACCHIO

Italy

Lui: semplicemente insuperabile

Lei: estremamente irresistibile

He: simply unsurpassable

She: extremely irresistible

"Our art research is active in the fields of Sound Poetry, Visual Poetry, Sound Installations, Visual Installations and Performances. We practise it individually and together. Since the 80s we started working on what we defined 'Poesiteatro'. So our performances became a structure where sound poetry and gestural action are present. A 'poesia totale' where objects and costumes could be used. The base sound on which we usually perform live, is personally created and elaborated on different tracks (from up to six or more) and the elaborated sound is frequently based on our voices often reduced to pure sound. Sometimes our works are created as Sound Installations and sometimes they become a performance or vice-versa. Frequently 'pre/texts' (whole sentences or rewritten fragmentations and collages from very well known works) form the core of the performance like in 'Annotations on Hamlet', 'Annotations on Macbeth' or 'Drogo' (presented in Cork) where Joyce's Finnegans Wake appears. A particular group of performances ('Carnbane 'West', 'Cairn', 'Cairn L, Stone 19') is based on megalithic sites, where sound, silence, light and darkness are the background on which we 'poetstalkers' act."

Working in the intersection of fine art and poetry, both artists describe themselves as 'poet, performer, publisher'. Carla Bertola began her creative literary and artistic activities in the early 1960s; Alberto Vitacchio, translator and educator began with a doctorate in Philology. Together they produce the magazine of visual and experimental literature, Offerta Speciale and have published numerous miscellanies of sound poetry.

Together and individually, they have performed in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, France, Ireland, Holland, Germany as well as Italy. Their sound works have been broadcasted on the radio in France, Germany and Spain. They have participated in many group shows throughout the world, showing visual poetry and book art in Germany and Korea as well as throughout Italy.