Projects — Andrea Mancini

MUDAM- Performative Sound Installation

Originally created for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, A Comparative Dialogue Act is the result of an ongoing collaboration between artist and musician Andrea Mancini (1989, Luxembourg) and the multidisciplinary Brussels-based collective Every Island (Alessandro Cugola, Astrid Lykke Nielsen, Caterina Malavolti, Juliane Seehawer and Martina Genovesi).

At the intersection of visual art, performance and sound, the exhibition turns into an experimental site in which guest artists hosted by Mancini and Every Island create new performative pieces drawing from a shared sonic library. The result is a collective artwork in which sound, space and body intertwine as the floor and glass panels on wheels act as speakers.

The resonating architecture and objects contribute to an immersive experience in a shared sensory field. In Venice in 2024, four international artists started an experimental living archive consisting of numerous sonic fragments provided by each one of them – ranging from snippets of recorded previous performances, newly made digital tunes, field recordings, and spoken word. During their short residencies, the pavilion was accessible for audiences to witness the evolution of this collective creation.Over the course of Mudam’s exhibition, four newly invited artists expand this library by reworking it once more.

During their short residencies – similarly consisting of production, experimentation and performances – each participant presents new pieces integrating material from the library assembled by all eight contributors. During the intervals between live events, recordings of the newly created pieces are played, alternating with a selection of library fragments.

‍A Comparative Dialogue Act brings together a line-up of positions to probe the potential of sound as a medium for creative negotiation, intervention and cross-pollination. By combining live and archival elements, a dialogue comes to life, nourished by the ever-shifting exchanges between artists who never met yet connect on this experimental platform through the shared language of music.

Venice Art Biennale 2024 - Performative Sound Installation
Luxembourg Pavilion

A Comparative Dialogue Act, a project by the Luxembourgish artist Andrea Mancini and the multidisciplinary collective Every Island has been conceived as an infrastructure for the transmission of sound – a shared production space challenging the entrenched notion of individual artistic authorship. Throughout the duration of the Biennale, the pavilion is hosting four guest artists who will produce and present new sound performances, thereby expanding the definition of a collective artwork. In this context, the notion of openness is not bound to the absence of limits, but rather to the appropriation of ‘the other’ and its contribution to open-ended scenarios.

Sound and space are tuned: the spatial elements – floor and walls – are turned into sound devices, progressively shaping an immersive experience. Technology is used to develop this localized experiment through which artists and audience consider the conditions under which knowledge is transmitted and shared.

The pavilion is at once the space where the soundscape is produced, and where it is played – the studio and the stage – in a gesture of radical transparency.An unprecedented collaboration between four emerging artists from diverse backgrounds, the programme brings together Spanish musician and performer Bella Báguena, French transdisciplinary artist Célin Jiang, Ankara-born performance artist Selin Davasse and Swedish artist Stina Fors to present four intersecting approaches to the multiple ways identity, performance and sound can meet. The defining link between their artistic practices is the choice of sound as their medium. The artists will never physically cross paths during their respective residencies: they shared a collection of their sounds before the opening of the pavilion as a basis for their work and will each leave one after their passage. Thus, at once tapping into an existing sound library and in turn forming a new one, each artist produces a soundscape – a synthesis of their own work and the traces left by their peers. The residency and production cycles of each artist are scheduled to run for the thirty-week duration of the Biennale. The space remains continuously accessible to the public.

Rotondes 2023 - Performative Audio Video Installation
HdA Hamburg 2024 - Audio Video Installation
Völlklinger Hütte 2024 - Audio Video Installation

with the help of geologists Natascha Kuhlmann & Jean Thein
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From the dawn of time, humans have harbored a profound fascination with minerals—their shimmering allure and essential utility weaving through the tapestry of our history. “Minerals,” an evocative audiovisual installation, delves into this age-old attraction, mapping the intimate and indelible link between humanity and the earth’s geological treasures. Enhanced by collaborations with geologists Natascha Kuhlmann and Jean Thein, this project employs sound performances rooted in extensive scientific exploration to articulate the narrative of human reliance on and reverence for minerals.
The installation integrates a significant visual research component that complements its soundscapes. Actual recordings from site visits with the scientists, featuring real-time interactions with geological formations, are interwoven with visuals of actual stones and other geological materials. These elements are further enriched by scientific materials lent by the National Center of Geology, allowing for a deep dive into the textural and compositional nuances of minerals. This visual amalgamation not only enhances the sensory experience but also grounds the project in authentic scientific contexts, bridging the gap between abstract artistic interpretation and tangible geological inquiry.
The sounds, derived from the depths beneath Luxembourg, are not merely auditory experiences but gateways into understanding our enduring bond with minerals. These geological processes, once the bedrock of ancient civilizations’ progress, today fuel our technological and architectural advancements, and tomorrow, perhaps, our ventures into new worlds.
The installation itself is a deep, meditative journey into the essence of minerals. Through innovative sound engineering, it seeks to recreate the acoustic resonance of geological formations, offering an immersive experience that reflects both the beauty and utility of minerals. The carefully curated soundscapes invite audiences to reflect on how deeply ingrained these elements are in our lives, highlighting our perpetual dependence on these resources.
Accompanying the installation, a 20-minute film provides a documentary-style insight into the project’s genesis and fruition. This film not only documents the artistic process and scientific collaboration but also serves as a reflective piece on the profound connection between minerals and human culture.
Together, the installation and film offer a multi-sensory exploration into our historical and ongoing attraction to minerals. This project not only uncovers the hidden acoustics of the earth but also underscores the significant, continuous relationship that humanity shares with the mineral world, encouraging viewers to reconsider the foundational role these elements play in human civilization across ages.Project supported by Oeuvre Nationale Grand-Duchess Charlotte.

Project supported by Oeuvre Nationale Grand-Duchess Charlotte.

Casino Display - 6 month residency + solo show 2021

New Age Landscape interrogates the intersection of sound, material, and space, engaging with the concept of the "invisible sound" as a process of spatial modulation. Through electromagnetic recordings captured within the gallery’s architecture, each room presents a confrontation between sensory perception and constructed environments. These modulated sounds expose the unseen forces shaping the dynamics of space, emphasizing the tensions between presence and absence, access and restriction, safety and threat.The exhibition explores how spaces are defined, controlled, and experienced through sound and visual structures. It moves between moments of disruption and containment, where the boundaries of each room function as sites of inquiry into heterotopias, zones of comfort, and barriers to access.

The architectural interventions and sonic landscapes question the authenticity of experience, asking how environments, both physical and auditory, are shaped by invisible systems of power and influence.By employing materials and typographic elements, the works engage with the absurdity of communication and the fluidity of spatial control. The use of analog sound processes and video further destabilizes the distinctions between organic and synthetic realms, creating a liminal space where sound becomes both a medium of control and a tool for subversion.In New Age Landscape, the sensory and the material converge to expose the latent structures that define public and private spaces, proposing new ways of experiencing and inhabiting environments through sound and spatial interaction. The exhibition critiques the way these landscapes are navigated, shifting the focus from the visible to the perceptual, from the literal to the intangible.

Projects by Andrea Mancini

A Comparative Dialogue Act | MUDAM

2025

Exhibition

Moving | Fonderie Darling

2025

Research

Hold Me Tight | Villa Medici

2025

Research

A Comparative Dialogue Act | Venice Biennale

2024

Exhibition

Minerals

2023

Exhibition

Relics

2023

Project

Luxembourg Art Week

2023

Curation

Matter Of Deep Dreaming

2022

Exhibition

New Age Landscape

2021

Exhibition

Lola Ran (EP)

2023

Music

SUZIVA2 (compilation)

2023

Music

Golem (EP)

2022

Music

Gamma (EP)

2021

Music

ndsi (EP)

2019

Music