Music Production Unit (2015)

On a certain morning, in an unused industrial area, 72 musicians from various walks of life and of various experiences, cultural background, age and nationality, are hired to work in a factory called Unità di Produzione Musicale (Music Production Unit). In a dressing room they are supplied with overalls and an i.d.numbers. Accordingly they gather to be instructed over the rules of their working day which lasts eight hours: they are divided in teams as an assembly line, and they have to produce music industrially. Within a flow production, in a music writing department their task is to produce scripts, while in an execution department they must play what has been written in a sort of impromptu interplay. The shifting of the teams is complex, so that they may be changed every so often their roles between music writing and music performing. The scheduling is rigidly established, including coffee and lunch breaks. The discipline, the timing and the logistics are controlled by foremen and other technicians. The musicians are not taken on for performing but for working: the whole operation is behind closed doors. There is no audience to applaud. For the whole day the musicians-workmen strive to keep up to the game, to overturn it or even to mock it: split between the impression that it's impossible to conceive, with the given conditions, a good music production and the obstinate effort to achieve it, as if at least a fine performance might redeem the alienating conditions imposed.