Lanza & Valle: Systema Naturae

By MDI Ensemble

Item Number: NX.STR37138

The cycle Systema naturae includes four pieces. Its main feature is the use of acoustic instruments together with computer-controlled physical objects placed in a specific spatial organization. Two references are at the base of the whole cycle. The first is the Medieval tradition of bestiaria, herbaria and lapidaria intended as multi-faceted catalogues of miscellaneous beings, among which different relations can be defined. The variety and heterogeneity of these collections is strikingly evident in early literary examples, that are bizarre lists of fantastic creatures, existing animals, stones and plants. A second reference for the work is taxonomy, that is, the systematic description of living organisms that dates back to Linnaeus' Systema Naturae (hence the name of the whole cycle) as the rationalistic possibility of ordering the polymorphous (and many times teratomorphic) appearance of nature. One of the foundational aspects of taxonomy in the so-called binomial nomenclature, that provides for each organism a name specifying its place in relation to other organisms by means of the couple genus et species. Each piece is organized following the model of the catalog, as a collection of short pieces each one receiving an invented Latin name.