Welcome to Covid Room!

Arts & CultureApril 9, 2020
Welcome to Covid Room!

Have you heard about Covid Room? Don’t let the “Covid” name fool you! This time, we are not talking about the virus! Covid Room was created and is managed by young creatives in quarantine and supported by other young artists. They believe in cooperation, in the power of art, in the desire to celebrate, in the need to socialize. Co-founder Andrea Giuseppe Parialó explains Covid Room, which hosts weekly e-clubbing events where DJs and participants can connect with their webcams.

For what purpose did you establish Covid Room? 

We established Covid Room as a response to the boredom and stillness resulting from current social distancing policies. Covid Room wants to be a 360° art and music platform. We were the first to launch this new concept of e-clubbing. We host video-conference parties every weekend where both DJs and participants are connected through their webcams so that they can see and interact with each other as if they were in a virtual venue. 

What is your manifesto?

Covid Room was created and is managed by young creatives in quarantine and supported by other young artists. Covid Room believes in cooperation, in the power of art, in the desire to celebrate, in the need to socialize. As a consequence, it fights with every muscle against boredom.

Covid Room was officially born on Friday the 13th of March and wants to be the first movement of artistic expression, aesthetic entertainment, and remote crowding.

Covid Room wants to be all the terraces in the world singing together.

Covid Room wants to recreate, in virtual reality, that sense of cohesion and belonging that physical distance precludes us.

2020…

The Southern Hemisphere has experienced one of the worst fiery hells in its history.

At the equator, the war between locusts and Chinese troops of ducks continues undaunted, and the Northern Hemisphere instead is grappling with the largest pandemic of the luster and the new millennium caused by SARS-CoV-2.

The major world sports have been suspended. The major world events have been postponed. Department stores are constantly being stormed.

Restrictive measures have currently been taken by China, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, United States, South Korea, Japan, Libya, Mozambique, Sudan.

The situation that we are all living and that we will most likely soon share with the whole world, marked by the anguish given by the immovability of time, by the continuous mechanical repetition of the same daily actions in the hope of keeping us busy throughout the day, by the forced distance between us and the need for both human contact and outlets, led us to the idea of a completely new format that has never been experimented before.

Who are the young creatives behind Covid Room? Could you tell us about the Covid Room community?

We’re all students or fresh graduates. Everyone is specialized in a lot of different things so we complement each other very well and we get to manage every aspect of the project. I will be a marketing data analyst but I share my own project of electronic music and photography both on my Instagram account; Daniele is graduating in economics, he might be a development economist, but he’s carrying on his culinary (a complete God at cooking) and musical events project; Pierangelo is studying government and politics; Giulia has her own project of illustrations for music and fashion magazines, Fabiola is a multidisciplinary architect, journalist and visual-artist; Lucia is a Graphic Designer, with her project she’s trying to experiment motion design in all its form. Irina is graduating in public administration and has experience in supporting initiatives through online communications, event management and fundraising, so yeah pretty heterogenous here too. Everyone of course has a passion for art and that’s what linked us all, even if so different on paper.

The community is huge and keeps growing, everyone is amazing!

The artists collaborated for pure enthusiasm and after the event, they keep promoting and helping us to grow, and they keep attending the event too! People from the public are starting to get to know each other and everyone is always happy to meet again on Covid Room. Everything happened so naturally and smoothly, so big thanks to everyone really. I still can’t believe what’s happening

We’d like to ask for those who don’t know: What are your activities as Covid Room? Could you also talk about your stream parties and Covid Room Virtual Museum project?

With pleasure! We basically organize weekly e-clubbing events. They are led on the video-conference platform Zoom and live-streamed on multiple websites, like Twitch and YouTube. At the same time, we are curating an exhibition of artworks that reflect our values and sensibility. We are displaying them both on our Instagram feed and on a Virtual Museum realized in collaboration with C/A on their ongoing Project M Ξ T A P L Ξ X, for a more immersive experience.

You invited the artists via an open call under the theme of “Covid Art”. What is Covid Art? How can artists apply? Could you tell us the details for those around the world who would like to be a part of this community?

Covid Art is the object we ask appliers to write in the emails they send us. The question actually asked by the call is “You’ve just woken up from a dystopian dream. But it’s not a dream, it’s reality. What do you see?”. This kind of reflection arose from the awareness that we seem to be living more and more those same post-apocalyptic hypotheses we were only fantasizing about until recently, although for reasons we wouldn’t have imagined. Most sci-fi stories imagine a world governed by high-tech where social contact is discouraged, but we wouldn’t have thought we would so willingly comply with such a scenario as a measure to fight against a pandemic. We look for artists who deal with this type of themes or with innovative techniques and technologies in general, as explained by the keywords listed in the call post. We look for all types of creatives, from visual artists, to photographers, graphic designers, fashion designers etc. Applications can be sent via email to covidroom@gmail.com with the object “Covid Art”, including in the text also the artist’s Instagram profile and a short description of themselves and their work. The same applies for DJs and musicians, only with a different object: Covid Music. Call is always open and our inbox can get hotter than this, so give it a go!

What steps should the participants follow to be part of the online events? Could you share a small guide with us?

Pay attention to this, it can be tricky.

People need to follow the instructions they can always find at bit.ly/How_To_Covid_Room.

The first thing to do is to join the meeting on Zoom platform by clicking the link and entering the required password which is also provided on the instructions.

The main problem, usually, is that people cannot hear anything, this is because we only stream video on Zoom. For the music, you need to open on your browser the 2 Mixlr links we provide on the instruction page and leave them open for the whole night. DJs are going to interchange on those 2 accounts making the switch between them faster.

We decided to have this setup after multiple tests and we came to the conclusion that this was the best solution to ensure our hosts the best quality e-clubbing experience. We want to recreate the club experience at home and audio quality is our top priority.

All links can be found on our social platforms anyway so go check them. We also made a little guide on how you can transform your room into a real dance floor. Making some drinks, wear some crazy clothes, add some fun lights and respect & love each other during the stream.

Will Covid Room complete its mission when the pandemic is under control or are you planning to move on with new projects?

Our project will definitely continue! We don’t know exactly what the strategy will be with the name, we don’t know yet if we will create a new collective or just stick to the Covid Room project itself now that it has a clear identity. For the future after the isolation of course online parties won’t have much public but we’re already thinking of some cool ideas to take Covid Room in the real world without losing the concept behind. Thinking about some sort of hybrid events, already under development. I can’t tell you too much for now but It will be cool even though we would definitely need some help by some sponsors cause the project we would like to realize is huge. But stay tuned!

Image: Tigris Li
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9y_wlSqLrY/?utm_source=ig_embed
Author: Berin Somay

RELATED POSTS