ROME.- CALCA is a multimedia voice performance by Vittoria Totale, part of a series of toponymical dialogues with imaginary friends.
Through mythopoesis, these conversations explore the experience of not belonging to any existing ‘home,’ shaped by continuous displacement. Adaptation is made possible by creating intangible, fantastical, and mobile shelters that manifest through language as form and sound. As Calvino says, “One can change a place by inventing a new name.”
With each new city, an imaginary friend emerged—figures embodying the negotiation with the intrinsic an-other, uncensored and empowered. The might of collectivity—’we are many’— translates into an individual practice that embraces multiplicity as a condition of expression. For Vittoria, such friends have taken the form of Erme, multi-headed deities overseeing and protecting boundaries, as seen in the Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo or on the Ponte Fabricio. These ever-evolving fantastical relationships have materialized in different forms since 2022, presenting Diorama in Verona, Dada in New York, and now Calca in Rome.
The performance unfolds through three stories, or sites—The Voice outside of Campo, The Voice Carrier or Voice Door, The Four Big Singers—set near Via dei Banchi Vecchi in Rome, where Calca and Vittoria lived together for some time. Born from the crowd’s chattering, Calca has two heads facing opposite directions, a penchant for retracing brinks and speaking in urban tongues. Each chapter recounts a shared adventure, a myth whose origin is always a voice—enclosed, legendary, wandering, fleeting, watery. These voices surface from nocturnal walks, composing an intimate and conjectural map of a city that becomes familiar only through its transformation.
As part of the intervention, Vittoria stages a two-faced shirt designed and realised with costume designer Maria Eugenia de Franchis, alongside three concrete poetry maps and a sound piece.
Vittoria de Franchis (Bruxelles, 1993) is a curator and voice researcher operating between London, Berlin and Bomarzo. Her practice delves into the intersection of text, sound, performance, installation and non-formal educational formats, with a focus on the creation of speculative and participatory contexts. Currently, she is part of the curatorial team at CIRCA and the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation. Her projects include the worldwide series of interdisciplinary salons gggglllloooossssaaaa (2023–present), the residential workshop Nuova Atlantide (2020–2024) and the multimedia project for Il Parco dei Mostri, Una Cosa Mostruosa (2021). Her voice works have been released by labels such as Recital, Villa Lontana Records, and Meakusma (upcoming) as well as being presented at AA Architectural Association, MACRO, Settantaventidue, Fondazione Sozzani, Festival dei Due Mondi, LOST Music Festival, IUNO, Établissement d’en face, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, LANDESCAPE, Kunstverein Gartenhaus (upcoming) and on radios such as Montez Press, Kiosk Radio, Refuge Worldwide, Stegi Radio, Rinse France and NTS. Over the years she has participated in voice and performance workshops by the Marina Abramovic Institute and the Meredith Monk Foundation.
