NICOLA DI CROCE (IT)
AFFECTIVE ROOM TONES
37’06”
FORMAT: CD + DIGITAL
CAT. N.: 9ED018
EDITION: 200
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RECORDED BY THIBAUT JAVOY BETWEEN JUNE 30TH AND JULY 2ND, 2017, IN STUDIO VENEZIA, XAVIER VEILHAN'S PROPOSAL FOR THE FRENCH PAVILION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
PERFORMED, EDITED AND MIXED BY NICOLA DI CROCE BETWEEN 2019 AND 2020 IN VENICE
MASTERED BY GIUSEPPE IELASI
DESIGNED BY MOTE STUDIO IN BERLIN
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY GIACOMO COSUA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © VEILHAN / ADAGP, 2021
“When Xavier Veilhan kindly invited me to consider which artists to involve in his amazing Studio Venezia project, one of the first names I had penciled in was Nicola Di Croce. Between the many sound artists that I know and admire, Nicola has the unique quality of always provoking an original dialogue between his theoretical reflections and his practice as a musician and I felt that he could have fruitfully inhabited that unique space. Dealing with architectures, technologies, but above all with the unpredictability of an ever-changing interaction between the visitors, the pavilion and the sound.
The way Nicola Di Croce’s music moves through the space and the way the visitors themselves move through Nicola’s sounds is rendered by the four tracks of this record in its uncanny nature of a practice where the possibilities of a recording studio are reinforced and subverted by the ghostly presence of a multiplicity of visions/listenings.
Where is the surface and what is really emerging? Is the music lapping the feet of the visitors or are their steps crumbling upon the sonic attention that the artist is activating just as one of the many possibilities of affection?
The various sound moments that the musician wraps around the idea of being together in a vibrating space, reveal their nature of geometry activators, as well as a reactivation of the primogenial possibility that all the sounds in a space can generate new kinships.
Listening to Affective Room Tones takes me back to the days of Studio Venezia, to the uniqueness of that experience, out of space and time, but - magically - immersed in the awareness that a space and a specific moment in time are made of the same stuff dreams (and we) are made of.”
— Enrico Bettinello




Architect, musician, sound artist, and scholar, he completed his PhD in Regional planning and public policies at Università Iuav di Venezia, Italy, and is currently Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at Iuav and McGill University’s School of Information Studies, Montreal.
His research deals with the relationship between Urban Studies and Sound Studies. In particular, he is interested in collaborative and participatory approach to urban policy analysis and design through Urban Sound Planning methodologies and Sound Art practice.
Sound is central to his artistic and academic activities. He considers critical listening a pivotal tool for the investigation of urban and cultural transformations affecting particularly vulnerable areas (such as depopulation, segregation and loss of local identities), and he believes sound planning tools can strongly contribute to improve the livability and inclusivity of public space and to promote social change.
Through articles, lectures, soundwalks, compositions, performances, and installations he aims to foster sonic awareness and to empower institutions and local communities, exploring the combination of collaborative and sonic methodologies for urban regeneration.
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Photo: Antonio Brigo