A walk outside of Horta, above Barcelona
View of Espeonceda Institute of Art & Culture
From mid-May to mid-June 2021, we had the chance to live and work in Barcelona through a program at the Espronceda Institute of Art & Culture called IMMENSIVA. The program took the form of an online and in person residency, with participants tuning in from all over the world to make digital and VR artworks that could be presented at an exhibition at the end of the month.
Our concert in Sabadell
Our eight-speaker performance space in Espronceda
Because of COVID-19, a small set of the full participants could attend in person in Barcelona, including us. For us, it was an experience that represented the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Being in Spain in the summer showed a glimpse of hope, after a very long year spent mainly working in the studio alone. It also seemed like a flashback to a past life before the pandemic: it was a month that could have easily fit into our travels in 2018 around Europe, when we usually spent a month at a time exploring a place and making a new work.
Our time here was dominated by work on a few concurrent projects. First, we had three concerts spread throughout the month in Sabadell, Vienna, and at the institute itself in Barcelona. Traveling even more was stressful, but at the same time extremely rewarding as it represented our first live and in person concerts in a long time. Our concert in Sabadell was even covered in the local newspaper!
Second, we were collaborating remotely with live-painter Akiko Nakayama. Together, we worked on a remotely-recorded performance piece featuring colors and octophonic sound. Fellow resident and filmmaker Emanuele Dainotti helped us to create a beautiful video for the piece, which was just one fantastic perk of being in residence with other artists.
All together, it was an incredibly busy month. We will remember this place for the warmth of the weather and of all of the people we met. Highlights of our experience were catching up with Sion Serra, our host in the very small town of Torralba de Ribota back in 2017, and meeting Julio Cesar Palacio a.k.a. Sun Color for the first time after sharing a concert online earlier this year.
