Role
Composer
‘Der Traum-a’ is a tripartite multimedia composition for electric guitar, classical guitar, tapes and live electronics. It tells, at its various stages, perhaps one of the most important of these becomings: the transition from the destruction of Berlin through bombings between 1943 and May 1945 until the very first postwar period in July 1945.
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“Berlin is a city that has always been condemned to become and never to be,” so in 1910 German art critic, Karl Scheffler, had already written, even if he could not know the tragic future of the city.
The grammatical dichotomy in the title between the German word ‘Traum’(dream) and the Italian ‘Trauma’ is the interpretative key of the composition itself.
From a personal reflection, I have come to assimilate the destruction/rebirth of the city to what can be a real, post-traumatic processing path that finds a prospect of re-starting in the dream. Maybe never anywhere as in Berlin, the alternate destinies of history came to the meeting. Berlin has experienced continuous transfigurations because of the endless battles that have taken place in its territory and that have made it the protagonist, mutating it forever.
I personally credit Flavio Nati for having performed the composition. Supported by Film Archive of Berlin, Chronos Media, which kindly allowed me to use their original video reels.
