MIRTILLO was born after the public exhibition ‘Malebolge’ realised at the end of 2019 curated by Lorenzo Rubini inside the former Church of Amelia, nine large canvases inserted in the original coffers of the church that represented Dante’s Inferno, anticipating by a year Dante’s Day, the national day dedicated to Dante Alighieri.
One could define MIRTILLO as the alter-ego of the artist Desiderio, who becomes the protagonist together with Andruccio of the new film of the same name, set in the Middle Ages during the Black Death of 1346. A visionary quest that will take the protagonists on a surreal journey between magic and alchemy.MIRTILLO, interpreted by Desiderio himself, is not only a multimedia project that brings together film, painting and performance research, but also a magmatic universe that mixes electronic music with the artist’s creative and dreamlike world of folklore, mythology and pop culture, from banshees (fairy women) to witches.
This step-by-step project, which winds its way through different media and forms of expression, was anticipated in 2022 by the photographic exhibition ‘Magnum Opus’ at GC2Contemporary in Terni and will be fully visible in 2023 in the various chapters of the short film MIRTILLO.
Desiderio does not call it a festival, but it has all the credentials to be one.
“El Bosque” becomes an opportunity to unite all these elements in a real time narration, in the form of an electronic Live Set, which will try to mix theatre, dance and techno music, another of the artist’s passions, which sees him founder of Coocuyo, the Cuban electronic music magazine, and soon to be producer of electronic music under the speudonym of Blueberry.
Among the protagonists anticipating “El Bosque” on the stage of the Roman Amphitheatre in Terni: Frankie Watch, Federico Cassetta, Molecola, MariGhela and Dan Mar. In the Live Set dedicated to “El bosque” Mirtillo (Desiderio) will be the musical accompanist together with his banshees and witches, a performative project coordinated by Valentina Gaia Pacheco with Irene Sdogati, Silvia Pellicano, Sofia Quadrini and the narrating voice of Elena Nati and the visual support of Nicolò Scentoni.
The evening of ‘El Bosque’, which is part of the summer season of Baravai 2023 (which Rolling Stone defines as one of the best festivals in Italy) will have Red Zone, a symbol of underground music in Italy since the early 1990s, as its organising partner.