17 May 2023 : Torino’s Politecnico : Transmedia Hackathon with Rizosfera and Officine Schwartz : Aula 81 : Transmedia Course :: from 10 a.m. to 2.30 p.m.

The teaching of Transmedia, a degree course in Cinema and Communication Media Engineering at the Torino’s Politecnico, organises in collaboration with Rizosfera and Officine Schwartz a didactic hackathon for the development of transmedia narratives dedicated to Officine Schwartz.

TRANSMEDIA HACKATHON THEME RIZOSFERA / OFFICINE SCHWARTZ: INDUSTRIAL MUSIC AND WORKING-CLASS CULTURE

Industrial music, understood as a musical genre that originated in the punk/post-punk/experimental sphere, and working-class culture, understood in its broadest sense, have been an inseparable pair since at least the late 20th century, in particular since the 1980s. Working-class culture is everything that the working-class world has produced in the sphere of expression from the 18th to the 21st century, including its forms of political-organisational visibility, its most coherent form of transcendence – Marxist humanism – and its styles of existence linked to the urban environments in which it flourished. Industrial music, on the other hand, was born in the ‘twilight’ period of this culture, i.e. in the late 1970s, and is linked to areas of antagonistic cultural expression that arose in the youth sphere. This milieu of artists coming from the world of the working class but interested in the rejection of the capitalist mode of production and its city-factory totalisation, express themselves through a creative reuse of industrial ‘waste’. In fact, the ‘industrial’ musicians no longer derive their sound sources from the Western instrumental music tradition but from the percussive reuse of industrial waste such as drums, slabs, sledgehammers and other ferrous accessories that go on to compose a new orchestration of noises and timbres in which there is no longer melody but only rhythm. In the Italian sphere, the most representative group of this intersection between working-class culture and industrial music were Officine Schwartz, whose 40th anniversary (1983-2023) was celebrated by the Rizosfera and Politecnico Hackathon.

What is a hackathon?

An intensive event in which interdisciplinary teams work in a fast-paced manner to develop a project. At the end of the event, the teams present their project and a winner is declared. Our hackathon will take place over 4 hours.

When?

Wednesday 17 May from 10 am to 2.30 pm

Where?

Room 8I Polytechnic of Turin

What will happen?

The polymedial publisher Rizosfera, on the occasion of the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Officine Schwartz, a historical reality of the Italian industrial music scene, will open its media archive to the creativity of the students of the Transmedia course. In fact, on 17 May, from 10 a.m. to 2.30 p.m., a didactic workshop in the form of a hackathon will take place in room 8I of the Politecnico di Torino, in which Rizosfera will make available videos, songs, texts and images tracing the career and works of Officine Schwartz. Students, divided into working groups, will use the archive materials to create short transmedia narratives (video clips, webdocs, microfilms…) on a theme of their choice (a song, an instrument, a place…), related to Officine Schwartz, and using the Klynt software.

Osvaldo Arioldi, founder of Officine Schwartz, will be present in the classroom to introduce the event and dialogue with the students.

What will be produced during the hackathon?

Working groups will have to produce short transmedia narratives, developed through the interactive editing software Klynt. The format and genre is at the discretion of the individual working group: webdoc, videoclip, transmedia micro-film. The thematic leitmotif is at the discretion of the individual work group: an instrument, an event, a character, a place… To be considered transmedia, the works must develop a micro-narrative using in a complementary and coordinated manner three contents to be chosen from among the texts, images, videos and songs made available by Rizosfera.

What do you win?

The winning group will receive a copy of the polymedia work “Industrial Blues” as a prize from Rizosfera and the winning concept will be presented during the evening of 17/05 at the Ziggy Club in Turin.

Participation in the hackathon will allow students to obtain a lab credit for the Transmedia course exam.

What happens to the concepts after the hackathon?

The concepts remain the property of the teams, who can include them in their portfolios. The hackathon has an educational objective. The teams will not be allowed to distribute their work without the permission of the holders of the rights to the materials made available. The works produced by the working groups will not be used outside the course, except by prior agreement between the authors of the works and the holders of the rights to the content used.

Hackathon Digital Streaming: when is it available?

One week before the hackathon, on Wednesday 10 May, Rizosfera will send each of the participants a series of e-mails with the credentials to temporarily access the RizoStream digital platform to enjoy the five works by Osvaldo Schwartz and Officine Schwartz that are the subject of the hackathon. Each email sent will contain exclusively a RizoStream code, strictly personal, to be able to stream a specific polymedia work. The works chosen for the hacktahon are as follows: 1) Industrial Blues 2) Opificio 3) Remanium Dentaurum 4) Ferrodolce  5) Internationale Cantieri

Guest speakers:

• Osvaldo Arioldi (Officine Schwartz)
• Paolo Davoli (Rizosfera Italia)
• Andrea Corsini (RS1 / Rizosfera UK)

Officine Schwartz

Officine Schwartz was founded in 1983 by Osvaldo Arioldi Schwartz as a research project on the sound and aesthetics of ‘industrial civilisation’. Right from the start, the group was able to carve out a singular place for itself on the Italian alternative music scene, not only for the originality of its subjects and colours, but also for its early multimedia experiments that brought together music, video, dance and theatre in a single performance. The Officine Schwartz use, in addition to traditional instruments and electronics, a self-made instrumentation by recovering, forging and tuning metals and residues from the world of work, such as drums, tubulars, laminates, large suspension springs, a harp built on a bicycle frame and other chordophones.

Rizosfera – https://rizosfera.org

Rizosfera is a cultural association and publishing house that publishes mainly on digital platforms under a Creative Commons licence. Its three publishing series are: I forti dell’avvenire, Rizonomia and OCFP while in the field of sound it produces surprising hybrids between book-form and disc-form, which it calls USO – Unidentified Sonic Objects / oggetti sonori non identificati – through two dedicated series: NUKFM curated by the Obsolete Capitalism collective and ARMComm Europe curated with Adi Newton (Clock DVA and TAGC/The Anti Group). Rhizospheric propulsions can be followed online at Rizosfera.org while rhizosonic accelerations can be listened to on the independent platform RizoStream.

At the end of the day, there will be the official presentation of INDUSTRIAL BLUES by Osvaldo Schwartz (Rizosfera-Nukfm) at the Ziggy Club in Turin with a LIVE SOUNDTRACK by Osvaldo Schwartz and Emiliana Voltarel on the A VAPORE docu-film, then presentation of the documentary / in the making of Industrial Blues, edited by Domenico Morreale. From 9.30 p.m. on 17 May 2023.