Giuseppe Penone - Musical transcription of trees' structure

A member of Arte Povera, Giuseppe Penone has been creating very special artworks since the late sixties, showing man in interaction with nature, involving vegetation,modifying its growth, carving out tree trunks to reveal their inner structure, growth curves and plastic richness. More recently, he has deliberately directed his work toward the question of man's position regarding classical history, or his place in an increasingly artificial environment. 

Following some work completed in Ardèche in 2011, the artist came upwith the idea of striking the trunk of fourteen varieties of treeswith amallet, registering the quality of the vibration from the wood itself, its resonance in away. Then a long experimental phase of analysis in a recording studio turned this rawsoundmatter into fourteen musical scores.

Following this, Giuseppe Penone selected seven tree species so as to give a plastic transcription of his experience in the formof seven drawings. Each drawing is aimed at giving a physical equivalent of that sound wave, forcing the artist to play with the very terms of representation.

"A Musical Transcription of Tree Structure" is showing the scores and reprinted engraving with a CD audio.