Touch the Sound

Commissioned by the National trust for Italy, for an ancient Roman pool in the city of Brescia, Touch the Sound become a signature installation exhibited at the Heller Garden Foundation in Gardone Riviera among the sculptures of Keith Haring and botanical plants, and at the Museo Lechi between the Pitochetto’s paintings. In 2014, for the FAI (Italian National Trust) Spring Days, Maddalena was invited to create a soundscape installation for the Roman pool in Brescia. The piece was designed to integrate with the archaeological site, welcoming visitors and enhancing their emotional connection to the space. Following the audio installation, she was asked to visually represent the sound for the official event catalog. This led to an exploration of how to translate soundwaves into physical form. Using audio analysis software, Fanconi studied the progression of the soundscape and then recreated the waveforms through a faithful material translation—not an interpretation, but a transformation of medium. This sparked the beginning of her practice: making sound visible and tactile. She started drawing the soundwaves using natural textures—bark, wood fibers, and stone—as graphic and rhythmic elements. Inspired by Braille and systems used by the visually impaired, Maddalena sought to create a multisensory experience. Maddalena worked with materials like beeswax and vinyl compounds, contrasting in origin (natural vs. synthetic) yet both responsive to light and touch. Beeswax, used historically by artists from Arte Povera to Anish Kapoor, brought warmth and tactility; vinyl offered a colder, industrial edge. She poured, cut, and scored the materials much like Alberto Burri, though her goal was to express the formal rhythm and structure of sound compositions—to be both seen and touched, always accompanied by the original audio.