designboom listens: paola pivi remembers what music leaves behind

what does creativity sound like to paola pivi?

Paola Pivi rarely turns to music for inspiration or concentration, and when she gets stuck, her response is simple: ‘I act. I move. I search. I despair.’ Music enters her life in other ways, through memories of late-night Italian television, songs that transport her back to the 1990s, and the live performances of her husband, composer Karma Culture Brothers. This week on designboom listens, the Italian artist reflects on the songs that have stayed with her, the ones she can barely listen to anymore, and why she believes music and visual art operate on different terms.

In our weekly series, we explore the music behind creative practice, asking people from different fields what they listen to when they need inspiration, get stuck on a project, or find themselves drawn back to a particular memory. Pivi approaches these questions on her own terms. She describes conventional song structures as restrictive, prefers the unpredictability of experimental music, and finds that a song can sound entirely different depending on how and where she hears it. A recent performance of Franco Battiato’s Summer on a Solitary Beach through a 24-channel speaker system at Triennale Milano brought back memories of a car ride decades earlier. Yet, when she played the same track online afterward, she found it ‘annoying and disturbing.’ This sensitivity to the conditions of an experience also informs how she thinks about her art. Discussing Leoni, 68,000 Watts of Light, an installation that uses twelve large lights to alter viewers’ perception, Pivi questions the idea of pairing visual art with a soundtrack. As she puts it, ‘Because music needs time and visual art is instant.’ Read on for Pivi’s answers, and discover the songs and memories behind her listening habits.

the italian artist on music, memory, and the experience of art

What song best captures your creative practice?
Paola Pivi (PP): Sex Pistols, God Save the Queen.

What is the very first track you play to clear the air and get inspired when starting a new project?
PP: No, no, no, no, no, inspiration and a new project need all the space in the world, there is no space for music in those moments. It would be disturbing.

Is there a song that instantly takes you back to a specific memory or place from your past?
PP: Well of course, tons of them. The last one was a song I saw 2 days ago on IG by Gianluca Grignani, La mia storia tra le dita. Very sentimental. Quite uncool to mention here. I saw a clip of him extremely young singing that song on the TV program Non è la Rai, a program that aired in Italy in the 90s with a large group of teenage girls hanging out together every afternoon. The girls appeared and sounded uncannily easygoing and interesting, in a twisted way, which was very captivating. In fact, their skills were manipulated because they were improvising with their authentic innocence but at the same time they were secretly prompted in an earpiece by adult authors.

It was fun to re-see what I probably, likely, had seen back then and sense the younger me watching that video, thanks to the emotions of the song, which drew me back in time to that precise moment, and feel the years in between in a sort of time lapse.

Another song that truly gave me a real time-machine trip back into a specific car ride in the 90s was Summer on a Solitary Beach by Franco Battiato, which I re-heard a couple of weeks ago in a magnificent way through the 24-channel speaker system of Voce, the new space at Triennale Milano dedicated to sound and music, curated by Carlo Antonelli. It is a place where music truly becomes a physical, dense mass in the space.

What song is stuck in your head right now?

PP: To tell you the truth, today really none, no song. I am not very inclined to music myself at all, I do not look for it, I do not play it. The melody of Battiato’s Summer on a Solitary Beach stayed with me for a few days after the performative experience of listening to it through the 24 speakers. Peculiar, though, that just now I re-searched for it online, to make sure I was quoting it right, and the music this time sounded annoying and disturbing to me. Often I find ‘regular’ music extremely boring with its 8 times 8 times 8 times… bridge, up and low. In this regard, I much prefer crazy music like Popol Vuh’s or the music of my husband, Karma Culture Brothers, which is not structured like that but free. He plays every day, so every day I have the extreme luxury of having a live chamber concert at home. Living with a composer is pretty cool, I suggest it. Also, having songs written about oneself is pretty nice. There are also certain Arabic music and songs that have stayed in a part of my memory and will never leave. They are two or three songs that Palestinian Instagram creators used a lot in 2024 and 2025.

What is your ultimate 2 AM studio track, the one you secretly know every word to?

PP: I have never memorized an entire song as far as I remember, but parts of some, yes, absolutely. My 2 AM song is Patti Smith’s Because the Night. It played every day at about 2 am in the early 90s on Italian TV. I used to stay up late every night to look for interesting programs on TV (Italian TV offered a lot back then), and that song marked the end of the night programming, or the beginning of the deep-night programming, Fuori orario. Cose (mai) viste (Outside of time. Things (never) seen) by Enrico Ghezzi, with niche movies often unwatchable.
The song played identically every night over images from the 1934 silent movie L’Atalante by Jean Vigo. It marked the end of the day for me; it had become a ritual. I totally adored the sounds and the images, but now, when I encounter the same song somewhere, I play it and… can hardly listen for more than a few seconds, because I find structured music too constrictive. A good song to end the day is also Into My Arms by Nick Cave.

What song do you put on when you’re stuck and need a breakthrough?

PP: When I am stuck I would never listen to music. I act. I move. I search. I despair. I stay stuck, but no music. When I felt very strong anxiety, at times, I sought the effect of Karma Culture Brothers’ solo flute, which is deeply touching and healed me.

What track is dominating your speakers this week, and is it influencing what you’re making right now?
PP: I do not use speakers, as the music flows up from the stairwell from Karma’s studio. Live, true. Live music does not make me feel the chains of time, like recorded music often does for me.

What song helps you slow down and focus on the tiny, quiet details?
PP: Honestly, details of art need silence. When I am doing repetitive activities, then I listen to what is happening in the world through news or IG. My life is already loaded with music because I live with a person who creates it live every day. It is part of the air in the house. I do not search for it on the web or through speakers.

If people were wearing headphones while experiencing your latest work, what one song should be playing?

PP: My latest work in a show was Leoni, 68,000 Watts of Light, a performative piece that is a wall of light in a group show, made of 12 large Arri lights, fed by a generating truck, and inundating a room with bright light that is so intense it plays with the perceptive system of the viewers in different ways. Even the same person can have extremely different reactions to the amount of light on different visits, according to their status.
Which song is this piece? None, really. Because music needs time and visual art is instant.

What is your favorite album cover art?
PP: By far, Robert Crumb’s cover for Janis Joplin’s Cheap Thrills with Big Brother and the Holding Company. But then, on a second thought, I also truly like the cover of the album Circle by Karma Culture Brothers, conceived by him and photographed by Hugo Glendinning, where Karma is kissing the hand of our son as if with the respect due to a mafia boss.

What track best describes your favorite project you’ve worked on so far?
PP: Today Is the Day by Karma Culture Brothers. Karma composed this song when he and I were in India fighting a very long and dangerous legal battle against the Tibetan Children’s Village to save the rights of our son and our family from some very aggressive, evil people. The court case, which also changed Indian law, was definitely my favorite project. It changed Indian law, making sure that Tibetan children in India can be adopted and can adopt parents. The song, with its fast pace and ‘make me dizzy and crazy,’ is totally adherent to how we lived. Karma made an album and book about this arduous time of our life in India titled Circle. I am the editor of the book. The music is online, and the book can be read here,