Pianoscópio, the “laboratory-sound factory”invented by CMT several years ago, has taken us to many places—both real and imaginary. Its passage through Fábrica Centro Ciência Viva de Aveiro was crucial, and this “immaterial comeback”, in the form of a retrospective exhibition, aims to showcase some of the “territories” uncovered over the past years. Fertile spaces where art, science, education, and community intersect, where ideas are questioned, experiments are made, and possibilities are explored.
In 2011 Companhia de Música Teatral (CMT) created Anatomia do Piano, a performing piece that approached “the instrument that may be considered the most influential in the history of Western music” in a rather unconventional manner. It involved two performers exploring areas of theater and dance, connected by a solid musical “thread”, the piano being played both conventionally as well as with “extended” or “prepared piano” techniques, allowing to explore several sonorities throughout the piece. The performance was based on the idea of revealing the inside of the instrument as if a “metaphorical surgery” would take place on the stage, allowing to discover the piano as “a place, a being with life, a sculpture, a stage, a house where music lives”. Anatomia do Piano invited the audience to “enter” the piano and uncover normally hidden details, building imaginary worlds where the boundaries of the various arts become blurred. It proposed a journey in a poetic territory that is usually absent in performances for children, making the Piano the great protagonist of a “total work” of art. At the end of the performances, audiences usually wanted to come to the stage and observe very closely some of the features they saw and it became clear that this curiosity and desire to experiment should give origin to a new idea that would allow to further explore the possibility of the general public, children in particular, to be involved in a practical, participatory, collective experience around the piano. That is how Pianoscópio came to be.
A multidisciplinary team of artists worked towards a first version of the project to be premiered at the BIG BANG Festival in Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB), Lisbon, in 2013. Pianoscópio was based on the idea of “deconstructing” the piano, in order to contribute to the construction of a more profound vision of music by creating opportunities for discovery and expression. Pianoscópio also aimed to challenge some conventions about Music by “transforming the piano into a collective instrument, a sound exhibit/sculpture capable of producing sounds of a myriad of colors, a space to be inhabited by people and produce sound as a result of their combined interaction”. It was planned to work in a range of situations: a) an interactive exhibit that could be visited and explored freely, b) a series of resources and ideas that would support a workshop based on exploring the different sound elements as well as on the construction of musical pieces that would combine a predefined basis with elements of improvisation, c) a resource that would allow medium or long term creative projects with a focus on music but allowing to explore other artistic languages and areas of knowledge, as well as the development of social skills such as communication and cooperation. It was initially planned for schools, families or mixed groups of people from six years old, but with time we realized that trained musicians, artists, educators or communities would also find interesting challenges in working there..
After CCB, Pianoscópio had a long-term residence (over 3 years) at Fábrica Centro Ciência Viva de Aveiro (Fábrica), a science centre that results from the partnership between Universidade de Aveiro (UA) and Ciência Viva – Agência Nacional para a Cultura Científica e Tecnológica, where it was presented as part of the science exhibits. The Pianoscópio matured at Fábrica: it acquired further elements in its technological / digital identity, and became a true laboratory for art and science activities. It hosted a wide range of experiences and audiences, from workshops with children to performances and recordings by professional artists, community projects, classes in courses of different degrees of UA, mostly associated with “creative”, “holistic” and “collaborative” approaches dealing with “sound as matter” that can be explored and shaped by a wide range of people.
Since 2020 Pianoscópio has found a permanent home at the Marvão International Academy for Music, Arts and Sciences (IAMAS), following its appearance at the sixth edition of the Festival Internacional de Música de Marvão. In 2021-2024 Pianoscópio was an important element of the project Deep Listening, Deep See(ing) (DLDS), a set of initiatives aiming to raise awareness of the importance of the deep ocean. The project involved artists, scientists and educators working with children and teenagers to create artistic experiences based on images / films of the deep ocean collected in scientific expeditions. “Imagining” the soundscapes of a barely known universe is a fascinating challenge and the first step, Missão Mar Profundo #1 , involved Pianoscópio as the “sound factory” where original sound resources were developed, allowing the creation of a “sound vocabulary” made available in an open “library”. This sound material was later used at the Fábrica Centro Ciência Viva de Aveiro in artistic experiments mediated by technology, where teenagers and teachers explored different ways of connecting sound/music and images. This “hands-on” work was accompanied by conferences by artists and scientists as well as performances and exhibitions of results (Missão Mar Profundo, #2, #3, #4 and #5).
Pianoscópio has taken us to many places—both real and imaginary. Besides CCB, Fábrica and IAMAS, there were “pianoscopic expeditions” at DeCA-Universidade de Aveiro, Museu de Etnomúsica da Bairrada, Festival Som Riscado-Loulé and Universidade de Évora, for example, and they were reported in conferences and publications. The most important “voyages”, though, are perhaps the ones that occur through the bodies, eyes, ears and minds of those, participants and listeners, that embark in the discovery of fertile spaces where art, science, education, and community intersect, where ideas are questioned, experiments are made, and possibilities are explored. The CD DBW25 is the most recent example of the “windows” opened by Pianoscópio. It is a wander, a journey through the various constellations of the CMT-universe, an ‘expanding universe’ pulsing with the energy of artistic creation, part of a vaster and infinite universe, that of Music: enjoyment, expression, communication, art, tool, element in the construction of identities, factor in human development and much more. The decision to record, at Pianoscópio, some of the encounters between music and words that were part of performing pieces, participatory projects and installations developed throughout 25 years of regular activity originated an art-fact that is an invitation to yet another voyage of discovery. This is what happens with voyages in the imaginary landscape: one leads to another.
