OMP Engineering is a leading provider of life support systems for troubled territories. Founded in 1959, it manufactures water treatment and recovery systems, field structures, and high bio-containment transport systems to armed forces in the NATO area, Civil Defence, and NGOs responding to disasters. The Artificare project has seen them collaborate with Michele Spanghero, visual and sound artist, with his artistic research focusing on imperceptible sound variations and marginal geometries.
Despite the apparent ideological differences, an atmosphere of mutual admiration and respect was immediately established between the artist and the company, which led to the realisation of ‘High Rise’.
The sound installation was conceived as site-specific for the former Lanificio Rossi in Schio, now Fabbrica Alta: six aluminium tubes, each the same height as the floors of the building, descend from the ceiling arranged horizontally, generating a perspective line representing the six floors of Fabbrica Alta. Inside each tube, a speaker emits sound waves that reproduce the harmony of the building’s resonance frequencies. A metaphorical representation of a historic industrial space born from an unusual but, precisely for this reason, fruitful collaboration.