“Alerta meteo! The sun is blazing, your skin is sizzling, and the rhythm is getting you tingling. Sun set, sunrise, pick the moment that’s right in your eyes, to enjoy a few hours of tunes, for the lover of music inside.”
Punishing heat—the type that burns your cheeks red and boils your brain to malfunction—seems to be the hot topic lately (no pun intended.) And why not? The summer solstice has brought along scorching sun, overbearing light, and weather conditions that are, to be honest, scary.
A few days ago I visited Canicula, the latest exhibition by Venice-based Fondazione In Between Art Film. As the title suggests, this selection of video artworks explores the impact of “canicula”—extreme heat—on vision and art, asking “what can be glimpsed through the glare of gathering catastrophe.” The exhibition is a must-see, with the works installed in a former sanatorium in Venice’s city center. Before I could finish watching the video on the second floor (one great but disturbing work, Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s 450XL: The Story of a Fugitive Sound) I collapsed from the heat and ran out to the nearest air-conditioned bar.
As I recovered from my little (unplanned) performance I started thinking that, if we ignore its horrific environmental consequences and constant life threats—living in permanent canicula can also be, at least, aesthetically and artistically interesting. Your mind changes like you were on some kind of drug. A filter falls on your surroundings, a burning patina that makes everything look surreally bright; Your attention falters and retreats inwards to your bodily needs. The outside, blazing, you cross it like a dream. It’s in this state that I first listened to the new playlist our friend and designer Alba Faggionato curated for Laguna~B.
Laguna BLAZE, as she titled the selection, captures the vibe of living in a heat wave: blurred mind, blurred sight; but also: dancing, escaping, resisting, finding solace in electric rhythms, enlivening the summer lethargy. Both intense and meditative, it mixes Balearic house music with acid jazz, funk, and new wave. Enjoy and stay fresh!