David Barratt and Faiyaz Jafri are pleased to announce the premiere of their work Medicino at the Kyo Art Gallery in Viterbo, Italy starting october 3rd 2009.

What is Medicino?
Medicino is a multi-media collaboration by composer David Barratt and visual artist Faiyaz Jafri using audio sculpture and life size video projections.
Over 300 acappella vocal recordings of the names of psychotropic drugs and compounds are layered upon one another, projected simultaneously from multiple sound sources.

The visual element consists of several animations depicting members of the nuclear family varying in scale in relation to one another over time. The pacing and the bright monochrome rendition of the animations in combination with the audio sculpture, creates a new reality for the senses and thus re-imagining the effects of psychotropic drugs.

The random juxtaposition of the various elements creates a new audio-visual piece, the structure, tone and visual of which are determined by the listener's relative position within the work at any particular time. No two viewers will experience Medicino in the same way.

What is the idea driving the work?
The goal of psychotropic medications is to give the patient a more fulfilled, peaceful and complete life. We anticipate that this piece would have similar effects on its audience, but as with any medication, side effects, positive and negative, are always a possibility.

Who is David Barratt? 
Born in London based in New York, Barratt's audio sculpture Karito (www.karito.org) was installed at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in October 2008.

As a Producer/Songwriter Barratt collected several gold and platinum records with amongst others Robert Plant and David Bowie. He is currently co-creating “The Beatles Complete On Ukulele” with Roger Greenawalt. Barratt's visual works have been exhibited in London, New York, Singapore and Bangkok.

Who is Faiyaz Jafri?
Faiyaz Jafri is a New York based artist born and raised in rural Holland of Dutch and Pakistani decent. Jafri’s art explores Jungian archetypes in the modern world. In addition he searches for neo-archetypes in mass media and global popular culture.

His work has an almost clinically engineered feel to it without becoming cold or soulless. It is this contrast between unnatural perfection and the fact that his work conveys a strong emotion that makes his work at times haunting but always strangely human.

His work has been exhibited in the form of print, video installations, animations and life size sculptures in New York, Berlin, Taipei, Songzhuang, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, and Turin. More on Jafri and his work can be found on his site bam-b.com and his blog.

Download PDF press release.