'Collaborative Works' is a 4h journey (in progress) that celebrates the experimental artists whom I am lucky to collaborate with and that I am grateful for.

If you are brave enough to dedicate 4h of your time to active listening, well ... I hope you'll enjoy the experience.

I left the 24'33'' collective sonic live performance 'Atomico Silenzio' at the very end. I recommend taking a short break before engaging into this. The last 4'33'' of silence you'll experience are the homage to John Cage we collectively performed during the final part of that live session.

Collaborative Works

24.09.2020 Neu und angesagt: Folk & Singer-Songwriter

Thank you so much to https://soundcloud.com/rosmarinobaia (Mario Sboarina)for his piece, a study for poetry sonorization, which inspired my sonopoem of the same title.

Music https://soundcloud.com/rosmarinobaia
Sonopoem https://soundcloud.com/ilaria_boffa
Cover ph by IB: Naxos, Greece, 2018

'Overshadowed

Let me tell you about becoming Earth
Gentle, gentle, gentle

Nothing familiar, everything embraced
No territory, no identity

The swaying grass, the riverbank
The boughs of the oak

There are new collective imaginings
Overshadowed

There are new collective imaginings
Overshadowed

There are new collective imaginings
Overshadowed'

Overshadowed Mario Sboarina&Ilaria Boffa

This is episode 1 of a podcast series called Electroacoustical Poetical Society by https://soundcloud.com/vanwindmill

https://thattuesday.libsyn.com/electroacoustical-poetical-society-episode-1

It includes my poems Less and Reset:
Less

Where is the forest? What is a forest?
I yearned for it and made my bed beside it
I became a forest, I trusted you

Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth
The dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, they contribute
To over 70 % of the biosphere

I thought I could finally decompose
Into many layers and fertilise
Dispersed and useful

Utility. Does this matter? One gets rid of futility and
People do not value useless stuff. Why do you keep it?
It’s meaningless

Some terms ending in less are 
Underestimated. I praise the words
Fearless, unless, endless, speechless 

And helpless instead. They speak of the forest. I trusted you
When we spoke of the forest. The gigantic unknown
We might inhabit together

The forest floor, the understory, the canopy
Perhaps it is happening elsewhere
In another part of the forest

Reset

Maybe we just needed to stay put
To let dolphins swim in the lagoon
Again, to slash nitrogen dioxide
They call it the largest scale 
Experiment ever
The largest scale lesson 
Will we learn. Will we reset.
In the Anthropocene the end of
The world already happened
And this is a second chance.
There is not another part of the
Forest.

pic Croatia 2019

Another Part of the Forest (Marjorie Van Halteren & Ilaria Boffa)

Music, mixing and production by https://soundcloud.com/peteswinton
Sonopoetry by https://soundcloud.com/ilaria_boffa

pic provided by Pete, woman in Northern Ireland fighting with the British army and killed just after the photo was taken.

Reflecting on modern times, the Milgram experiment 20, the moral dilemma between obedience and subjectivity and nonviolent resistance.

'Till I tell you to stop

Till I tell you to stop. Stop, continue, press and pause, stop. 

Wrong. 2006, 2019, 2036 continue please, I take the responsibility.
Continue please, till I tell you to do so.
Stop, continue, press and pause, stop.

Obedience, the comfort zone of instructions.
A more humane surrounding, UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles reduce 
combat stress. They call it the era of instrumental massacres or
the semiosis of killing.
It’s more humane to slaughter this way. 
Kneel on the necks or get in good trouble. 
Subjectivity.

Continue please, till I tell you to do so.
Stop, continue, press and pause, stop. Kill?
Continue please.'

Till I Tell You To Stop (Ilaria Boffa & Pete Swinton)

Music, mixing and production by https://soundcloud.com/p-e-n-i-n-s-o-l-a-r
Please check on Bandcamp the full album with various  collaborations: https://peninsolar.bandcamp.com/album/in-between-obfuscate-coordinates

My sonopoem 'Coordinates' refers to the book 'Objective Becoming' by Bradford Skow, prof of Philosophy at MIT on the comparison of different theories of time, spacetime, robust passage and experiences.

'Coordinates
Time does not pass, we pass through time
In stages or blocks and become
Spatially and temporally scattered we 
Have experiences at other places
Inaccessible to us here and
At other times unavailable to us now
Yours and my P1 and P2 positions extend
How fast do we pass?
Can we reminisce about the things to come?
Flashes in between coordinates
Perhaps glitches in the protocol or
Ultra-rational diagrams
Have been and not yet spiral and interchange.
Time-biased preferences are falsifiable
One life is better than another if and only if
The total amount of pleasure minus
the total amount of pain in the first life
Is greater than the corresponding quantity
In the second one.
Can sacrifice change the perspective?
And if I live with you n latitudes and
Longitudes, simultaneous instants
Pre and post my vertebral consumption
In between we will rest
Wherever you are, whenever you happen to be
Stay put'

In Between Obfuscate Coordinates - P è n i n ș o l a r & Ilaria Boffa

Just a little live recording of a song I recently wrote...

Probability & Definition
(In the key of Segno)

It's a hard pill to swallow to see promises die
And a radiant future  wave its goodbye
But isn't any medicine just supposed to heal one,
And did it do its job if the existence is gone?
As I search the whereabouts of my supposed sins
Others dissolve in their well-meant sweetish grins
The tired ol' tale of probability and definition
After all everyone wants their share of recognition

Another eternity dying away, making some room for a memory-filled day
Now that I feel that my place is not here
But continue searching anyway, for sure its not near.

The best ones leave, as the worst stays behind
Still tells me to believe that destiny's kind
And to numb my mind with an easy way out
In the end, no one knows what all this is about
Awaiting and forming some kind of apology
I sink into the sands of modern technology
And how much would my wisdom be worth in the end
If no one's there to listen or willing to descend.
                              ...
Just what will it take for these tides to finally turn
How many words and tries without bridges to burn
And freedom's just another word to easily reject
An easy sign for someone, the truth to suspect
My haphazard walk on the edge of this knife,
Would it ever bring me closer to the elixir of life,
Or just spark some more madness, aloud and within
As my dreams were etched into the depth of my skin.
                            ...
Maybe its near.

Probability & Definition (Demo version)

Coverversion des Bob Dylan Songs „Simple Twist of fate

Simple Twist of fate

The Journey - An Orange Day
(written, recorded and mixed in the (beginning) key of Segno)

Night falls down, our thoughts drift off, to places far or near
Memories where we were happy or sad
Mix in the starlight clear.
                               ---
And I'm certain I'll see thee again someday,
When the orange sunlight falls down on me
And on the willow tree, down by the bay
                               ---
The unforgettable, wounded hero
And the starry-eyed bard from the lost-and-found
Breaking the bread over coffee and chocolate
To the green notes of an ancient lute's sound.
                              ---
Thy words had grown wings and took off my frown
To accept my sonorous reality
Like the dark-eyed youth from the ancient old town
In the north by the shore of the sea.
                               ---
Bathing in moonlight with thee by my side,
Washing the past scars away
The new day'll be dawning and it looks so bright
With nothing to lead us astray.

The Journey (An Orange Day)- Demo version

written and recorded by shane m. blanchard

<3

when my life is over
hiding in the corner
is the love we shared

our hearts must have deceived us 
and this loneliness redeems us once again

we could never find it
constantly reminded
that our love would end

its happening in stages 
ill cry about the changes   

i know thats its hard for you to be alone this time
you never trusted your heart my dear
i think its gonna take a long time 

lost within the pages
copy and then pasted in your arms again
is it just me dreaming
i can’t possibly believe it 
ill pretend that I am next to you
in these dreams

when my life is over

//

I’m gonna drive my car into the lake
I live my life in all the wrong ways
foot on the gas and I’ll lock myself inside
and maybe then, I can get some peace of mind

I’d say I tried but I know that isn’t true
not up to par and the water’s flowing through
thought I could handle a little more than this
seems I was wrong; that I’ll readily admit

I guess my mom thought that I could make it big
or at least move out by 26
I guess my dad thought that I could be a star
but here I am drowning in his shiny car

Looks like I drove this car into the lake
I lived my life in all the wrong ways
there’s no one here, it’s the middle of the night
I’m out of time and I should’ve said goodbye

//

car in the lake

This is version 1 of 'Untrodden Lead New Pristine', an overlapping of intimate words and funky jazz sounds. Somehow, the emotional status of a world moving and rushing while the inner space is struggling within itself.

Music, mixing and production by https://soundcloud.com/p-e-n-i-n-s-o-l-a-r
Reading and sonopoetry by https://soundcloud.com/ilaria_boffa 
Bandcamp https://peninsolar.bandcamp.com/album/p-e-n-i-n-s-o-l-a-r-ilaria-boffa-untrodden-lead-new-pristine
Vimeo https://vimeo.com/461581122

Excerpt from 'Im Westen Nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front' (Chapter 12) by Erich Maria Remarque

‘Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experiences we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way anymore.
And men will not understand us – for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten – and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered; – the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.
But perhaps all this that I think is mere melancholy and dismay, which will fly away as the dust, when I stand once again beneath the poplars and listen to the rustling of their leaves. It cannot be that it has gone, the yearning that made our blood unquiet, the unknown, the perplexing, the oncoming things, the thousand faces of the future, the melodies from dreams and from books, the whispers and divinations of women; it cannot be that this has vanished in bombardment, in despair, in brothels.
Here the trees show gay and golden, the berries of the rowan stand red among the leaves, country roads run white out to the skyline, and the canteens hum like beehives with rumours of peace.
I stand up.
I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.’

Sonopoem ‘Im Westen Nichts Neues’

All quiet. Niente di nuovo.
Where is the storm, the awe
that yelling at the top 
of our lungs, the desperate flight?
Im Westen Nichts Neues, Europa.
Before and after, hidden and heedless.
Consciously superfluous to yourself.

We walk your geology Europa
And nothing is pristine.
What is missing, what thought
what sorrow?
It cannot be that we forgot our intents.
You keep withdrawing. 
And I keep talking to myself.

P È N I N Ș O L A R Ilaria Boffa Untrodden Lead New Pristine (v1)

Music&mixing by https://soundcloud.com/markvernon
Sonopetry&mixing, cover pic by https://soundcloud.com/ilaria_boffa

Sonopoem called 'Ode for Complexity' by IB

'Ode for Complexity

And what’s next? Next roots to eradicate, cultures to dominate, archetypes to steal. Cyborg and Pseudo.
Assume mediocrity. No phenomenon is special, privileged, exceptional or superior.
Assume the principle, ‘if an item is drawn at random from one of several sets or categories, it's likelier to come from the most numerous category than from any one of the less numerous categories’.
And yet, the probability of being mediocre is increasing. The service of thinking is at risk.
Too-much-ness of counter-intuition. It’s hard to do difficult things. 

*‘E’ difficile fare le cose difficili:
parlare al sordo,
mostrare la rosa al cieco.
Bambini, imparate a fare le cose difficili:
dare la mano al cieco,
cantare per il sordo,
liberare gli schiavi che si credono liberi’.

Clouds are moving fast. They’re shifting perspective. Carry me with you.'

* Nursery rhyme by Gianni Rodari, late Italian writer, especially children’s literature, pedagogist, journalist and poet.

It’s difficult to do difficult things: 
To talk to a deaf,
to show a rose to a blind. 
Children! Learn to do difficult things:
take the blind by hand, 
sing for the deaf, 
set free slaves who believe themselves free.

Nexotica (Mark Vernon & Ilaria Boffa)

Poetry, Field recording and the More-Than-Human Human

'I use this space to offer an experience of Sonopoetry, the voice of verses combined with field/sound recording and music collaborations.
Writing and composition marked the passage from pre-history to history for human beings. I firmly believe that writing&listening (active care/empathy and full attention to each and every sound from each and every living and non living being) could inform, guide and represent the Posthuman era that I'll call Human Human era -from sapiens sapiens to human human.
The contemporary alliance between the disciplines of Art, Science and Philosophy elicits the conceptualisation of the Posthuman that to me also implies the transition from the Anthropocene to the Age of Art as a driver of thought and vision. I advocate the responsibility to assign a 'more than human' meaning to the Posthuman concept, that's why More-Than-Human Human, in order to emphasise the human core, the genetic connection to bio and non-bio diversity as per the Biophilia Hypothesis.
Are we listening?'

Born 6 January 1972, Ilaria Boffa is an Italian poet and sound recordist. 
She has published four poetry collections and she is one of the eight authors included in the North East American Association publication ‘Writing in a Different Language’ Vol XL 2018.
Over the last years, she has been experimenting with field recording, blending her spoken word with sound.
Publications:
Beginnings & Other tragedies/Inizi e Altre Tragedie, 2023, book of poems (Eng/Ita)
https://www.valleypressuk.com/shop/p/beginnings-tragedies

About Sounds About Us/Di Suoni e di Noi, 2019, book of poems (Eng/Ita)
http://www.samueleeditore.it/about-sounds-about-us-ilaria-boffa/

Writing in A Different Language, volume XL NeMLA publications (Northeast Modern Language Association), College of New Jersey, 2018
http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/publications/nis/past/volume-xl.html

The Bliss of Hush and Wires/Periferie, 2016, book of poems (Eng/Ita)
http://www.samueleeditore.it/periferie-the-bliss-of-hush-and-wires-ilaria-boffa-2/