SEPEITHOS. The vanished river of Naples (A lecture-performance on epical listening for the Holy Friday)

Once upon a time there was a river in Naples, that disappeared.

The ancient Greeks called it “Sepeithos“. Its sound can be still heard, if one listens to it.

In this lecture-performance, through a mythical method of free associations inspired by James Joyce among others, the theatrum phonosophicum tells about a ‘work in progress‘, that is the listening of a city for 24 hours, immerging in the many layers and spaces of Naples’ unconscious: an epic stream of field recordings, sound images, objects, substances and thoughts – mixing memories and desires, centuries and millennia… (Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater as fil rouge).

A soundscape of a ‘chaosmos‘ that lets opposites to coexist: riot and mystical silences, light and darkness, fullness and emptiness. Aware of the continuous, inexorable transformation of everything.

Being is becoming. “Ah, heartrending marvelous beauty of creation!“ (Thus spoke Totò at the end of Pasolini’s movie ‘What are the Clouds?‘).