“The glacier as a patient
The melting of the glaciers in Iceland is impressively brought to the ears in the Mariana Ungureanu’s music. Accompanied by scientists from the Hornafjordur Research Center (University of Iceland), she conducts field research on the Vatnajökull glacier and documents the slow death of the ice giants in images and in sounds.
Ungureanu’s video-supported music literally gets under your skin.
The glacier appears like a patient on a drip. The continuous, acoustically staged dripping of the meltwater, which turns into flowing streams, seems like the bleeding of a human body, the slow, unstoppable death of a living being.
Both the fascination and beauty of the huge ice worlds and their fragility and irreversible destruction by humans are dramatically expressed.”
Dorothée Bauer, Feinschwarz, Mai 2024 https://www.feinschwarz.net/vom-sonnengesang-zur-gletscherschmelze/
Upcoming performances: Paris, Vienna, Venice: Oratorio, Music theatre, Sound -video installation with dance
• December 18, 2025, 7PM, Auditorium Santa Margherita, Venice
“Sospiri dei Limbi”, passione musicale (italian premiere)
Gruppo Vocale, Coro, Orchestra dell’Università Ca’Foscari
• July 21-29, 2025, Pulverturm Festival Feldkirch
“The Ice LIfe”, a sound-video installation based on field recordings from Vatnajökull Ice Cap. More details about the project at https://www.livinglab.me/
• June 12, 2025 , Musik und Kunst Universität Wien
“The Ice Life” , sound-video artistic research on the Vatnajokull Ice Cap, Iceland. Choreographic version , in collaboration with Zeitgenössischer Studiengang Tanz MUK.
• April 21, 2025, Cité des Arts, Paris
“A voice from Paradise”, world premiere. Music theatre for female voice, instruments and electronics. Collaboration with Maria Zaikina, visual artist (RU/DE)
• October 17, 2024, La Fabbrica illuminata Conference/Festival Bucarest : “Stillstand”, for soprano and 5 instruments. Ensemble Klanfar Kommentar
• September 27, 2024, 7PM, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris
`”Sospiri dei Limbi”, Passion music for 4 singers, 3 instruments, electronics and video. World premiere.
Text based on Dante’s Divina Commedia, the Virgil’s Aeneid, and the Canto I by Ezra Pound.
In Italian, French, English and Latin languages. Libretto : Filippo Bruschi, Video artist: CInty Ionescu, Sound editing: Martin Lucas
The trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmTA8FNOQ3g
• July 5 – 12, 2024, 7PM, Theresianumgasse 35, Vienna (1040)
“The Ice LIfe”, audio-video installation based on field recordings from Vatnajökull Ice Cap. A collaboration with the video artist Tina Hochkogler. Sound editing : Martin Lucas.
More details about the project at https://theicelife.org/
• June 13, 2024, Nordic House, Reykjavik
Presentation, with Stefan Schneider, of the artistic research in “The Ice LIfe”, an art-science-ecology project based on field recordings from Vatnajökull Ice Cap.
This work is a collaboration between the Doctoral School EDESTA (University Paris 8), the Cognitive Sciences Hub (University of Vienna). and the Hornafjordur Research Center (Iceland University).
• May 31, 2024, CNR Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris
“Borealis”, for flute and accordion. Alaïa MIchon, accordion.
Original photos: form Katla Ice Cave, Iceland Marteinn Thorsson
Living Lab performance Duo (with Martin Lucas)