+39: Call for Italy
video screening curated by Claudia D’Alonzo (Digicult, IT)
Digicult presents Digicult Video Screening within the project +39:Call for Italy for the Cimatics festival in Brussels. It represents an overview of the contemporary audiovisual scene in Italy through the works of 13 authors.
Screening programme–
UNreDELMONDO 2.0 – Elec,
Stip Melody - Vinz Beschi,
Fino – Blu,
Am i Born? - Fabio Franchino,
City Scan - HFR-LAB,
Infonaturae 1.0 – Mattia Casalegno + Emanuele Errante,
Oakland - Mylicon/en,
Sodium Penthatol - ZimmerFrei,
Forming - Progetto Antenna,
The Rain - Virgilio Villoresi + Ericailcane,
Quantize This - Ogino Knauss,
Waltz 57 - Niko stumpo
Animula - otolab
Spiritual healing - 47th Floor
The interaction between sound and moving image is the common denominator of these works, whose makers operate in very different fields. They have been invited by Digicult Video Screening for a collective confrontational opportunity to find common grounds in the varied Italian electronic audiovisual production of these last years. The screening features works going from video art to animation, from graphic design to videoclips to audiovisual synaesthesy, presenting a range of approaches and methods so as to follow the different tinges of meaning around what is referred to as ‘audiovisual’.
A videoclip is one of the audiovisual means of telling a story. Which is what happens in “The rain” and “Spiritual Healing”. “The Rain”, born as a collaboration between videoartist/maker Virgilio Villoresi and the illustrator Ericailcane, uses the stop motion technique to create an environment of small things accompanied by the sound of Lou Rhodes (Lamb). “Spiritual Healing” is another video clip, produced by a group of graphic designers and videomakers called 47th floor, with music by Zu: a gothic voyage that reminds of Hieronymus Bosch’s crazy and distorted worlds. The stop motion technique is also reinvented by the duo Elec in “Un re del mondo”, it is an installation where sequences of photographs of a mechanic being become a video whose creation is controlled by sound./p>
The video “Fino” by Blu looks like and escherian fairy tale. The illustrator uses animation to create a never-ending drawing whose shapes generate other shapes. “Waltz 57”, by illustrator, web-designer and film-maker Niko Stumpo creates, instead, a link between computer graphics and animation putting up a carillon of abstract shapes that dance in a visionary, dissolved environment. Graphic design is also the easthetic reference for the video “Forming”, by the group Progettoantenna. They investigate the thin line separating creation and decay of a shape using 3D techniques./p>
Zimmer Frei, from Bologna, unites theatre, music, live cinema and performance under a common idiom, exploring time and its perception, a main issue in videoart. Their work, “Sodium Pentathol”, is a camera-car subjective sequence-shot taken in Brussel’s bypass ring. Fabio Franchino, an artist who works both in the field of video and generative art, presents the video “Am i Born?”. A work where sound controls image thanks to self-produced software, creating a poetic and intimate abstract path among inlaid shapes, lights, skin and body. Ogino Knauss, who have been pioneering research on the urban tissue transformations using video, vjing and live cinema, are present with “Quantize This”, taken from an installation of theirs which was commissioned by Domus magazine for San Siro stadium in Milano. It is an investigation on the city of Milan using the concept of the ‘number’ as a sign that characterizes this city. Urban landscape is also the main theme in a video series called City Scan, by Hfr-Lab, a multidisciplinary and experimental group. Architectural elements become audiovisual modules to be mixed and interweaved according to a practice, which is halfway between graphic design and vjing.
“Infonaturae 1.0”. is a collaborative work between musician Emanuele Errante and videoartist Mattia Casalegno, where in sound paths and ever-changing pixels create a morphogenesis on the brink between organic and inorganic. “Oakland”, a video of group Mylicon/en, forms an original mix of digital abstraction and physicity. Original TV sources dissolves and are layered so as to become a flow of colours and sound. The exhibition finishes with the video “Strip Melody”, by videomaker Vinz Beschi, who builds a complex score on the piece “Stripsody di Cathy Berberian” composing plugs and video fragments that use facial expressions of bewilderment along with onomathopeic comic-book sounds. In doing so Vinz Beschi realizes a very original piece where voice, images, words and rhythm become elements to de-construct and re-use.