D e H u m a n i C o r p o r i s F a b r i c a

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 45:28] all rights reserved

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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link: otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)

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"A renascence anatomy.

Contemporaneously O.M. dismembers in seven the audible corpse of the Renaissance.

Seven intraopuses, seven instruments, seven seals." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Latin for ´On The Fabric Of The Human Body´).

A set of 7 books on human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) and published in 1543. It represented a major advance in the history of anatomy.

The collection of books is based on his Paduan lectures, during which he deviated from common practice by dissecting a corpse to illustrate what he was discussing. Dissections had previously been performed by a barber surgeon under the direction of a doctor of medicine, who was not expected to perform manual labour. Vesalius's magnum opus presents a careful examination of the organs and the complete structure of the human body. This would not have been possible without the many advances that had been made during the Renaissance, including artistic developments in literal visual representation and the technical development of printing with refined woodcut engravings. Because of these developments and his careful, immediate involvement, Vesalius was able to produce illustrations superior to any produced previously.

Fabric. Structuring of an organism. Structure, construction, composition, formation, organization ... These are the premises that Otacílio Melgaço establishes in his sonic transcreation. The difference is: he (through its imagination and ubiquity; its reborn dance of the seven veils) deals, such as an eccentric and choreographed dissector, with the sound corporeality. And beyond. The American modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham once said: ´I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being.´ This is what Melgaço is talking (composing, playing) about:
... about miracles." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - The success of De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem recouped the work's considerable expense, and brought Vesalius European fame, partly through cheap unauthorized copies. He was appointed physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; Vesalius presented him with the first published copy (bound in silk of imperial purple, with specially hand-painted illustrations not found in any other copy). To accompany the Fabrica, Vesalius published a condensed and less expensive Epitome: at the time of publication in 1543, it cost 10 batzen. As a result, the Epitome became more widely seen than the Fabrica; it contained eight anatomical engravings that condensed visual material from the Fabrica, one illustration of the human skeleton taken directly from the Fabrica, and two new woodcut plates;

II - A copy of the book bound in tanned human skin was donated to Brown University's John Hay Library by an alumnus. Its cover is "polished to a smooth golden brown" and, according to those who have seen the book, it looks like fine leather. Covering medical books in human skin was not an uncommon practice until the 18th century, utilizing the skin of executed convicts and poor people who died with no one to claim the body;

III - www.vesaliusfabrica.com/en/original-fabrica/the-art-of-the-fabrica/newly-digitized-1543-edition.html

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
Wikipedia was the main source...

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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.