Carmen is the new short film written and directed by Gabriella Parisi, the story is loosely based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée published in 1845 from which is also ispired the unforgettable and acclaimed opera by Prosper Mérimée.
The original soundtrack is composed by Alessandro Porcella, musician, film composer and music producer, who is been nominated for numerous international awards. In the past, he has worked together with the artist for the soundtrack of Fly on the blue side and Over Game, this last exhibited at the 54th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011.
The character of Carmen, according to Gabriella Parisi, embodies the prototype of an independent female personality full of passion which is inherently loyal only to the idea of love and freedom, not to her men and to the social rules.
In addition, Carmen is a character so different from those sketched by Ibsen with his Nora, in A Doll’s House and Alexandre Dumas fils, in La Dame aux Camélias (literally The Lady of the Camellias, commonly known in English as Camille) with Marguerite , much to highlight all the signs of a contemporary female stance against the dictates imposed by the “male-dominated” thought which reduces love at mere possession, leaving anything margin of freedom to woman.
The tragic conclusion of Carmen’s life is the swan song of a destiny from which couldn’t escape but at the same time is an exaltation of the supreme value of freedom to which Carmen doesn’t want to give up not even in front of the specter of death, sacrificing her own life.
Carmen by Gabriella Parisi doesn’t aspire to be faithful to novella of Mérimée but to idea of expression’s freedom, a freedom that is not wound on a single meaning but which dissects, in a frantic search of truth about the meaning of reality, multiple interpretations and images, amplifying the point of view. In addition, the art film is steeped in the poetic spirit of Rimbaud‘s Illuminations and, in some respects, is intimately interconnected to his research and vision.
The diegetic rhythm of Carmen runs on the tracks of metafiction, with images’s accelerations of postmodern matrix and contemplative brakings aimed at the “deconstruction” of the sense, reflecting on the same reflection, with a restitution of a highly imaginative storytelling, totally renewed and in momentum cathartic, aiming to plunge into the deepest meanderings of thoughts which animates the acts of Carmen. Ultimately, Carmen suggests “potential finals” that open the scenario on a reality in progress which gets rid of its end and that is modeled, however, with the viewer’s sensitivity and conceptually referring to ontological freedom which tries a deeper meaning in life and to be reunited with the transcendent dimension.
Parla con Me: design e la comunicazione tra le persone e gli oggetti Paola Antonelli
“(…) E lo stesso con il” segno @ “che abbiamo acquisito alcuni anni fa. Fu il primo esempio di un acquisto di qualcosa che è di dominio pubblico. E quello che dico alla gente, è quasi come se fosse una farfalla che vola da e abbiamo catturato l’ombra sul muro, e solo stiamo mostrando il shadow.So in un certo senso, stiamo mostrando una manifestazione di qualcosa che è veramente importante e che è parte della nostra identità, ma che nessuno può avere. Ed è troppo lungo da spiegare l’acquisizione, ma se volete andare sul blog MoMA, c’è un lungo post dove spiego perché è una così grande esempio di design. ” Paola Antonelli
Ho apprezzato molto l’intervista con Paola Antonelli di Randall Packer su Talk to Me mostra, uno spettacolo innovativo che ha rivelato il ruolo della comunicazione in arte contemporanea e design.
Questa intervista e il Catalizzatori corso mi hanno fatto pensare molto, innescando off riflessioni sul rapporto tra arte, tecnologia e social network. A mio parere, social network e comunicazione online sono l’esternazione del nostro spirito del tempo. Sono un grande happening e narrazione collettiva.
L’arte non è interessato a costruire i codici sulla stabilità, si sofferma sulla indicibile, a tempo indeterminato, il caos, tipico della condizione di instabilità. Paradossalmente, la stabilità del pensiero deriva dalla instabilità del linguaggio comune, la pubblicità, la musica pop, chat, blog, social network, attraverso i quali emerge in forma simbolica una immagine abbozzata, ma non ancora definito, che esprime lo spirito del tempo.
L’ le parole sono dinamici, metaforico, allegorico e allusivo. Essi racchiudono una simbologia straordinario, secondo Wittgenstein, in ogni parola c’è un simbolismo nascosto che rivela la contraddizione, il non detto, l’indefinito. Dobbiamo mettere al “auscultazione” la nostra attenzione sulle parole perché danno voce a tutti quei rumori che non possono essere catturate da un metodo logico-matematico ordinario, che emerge al di là di tutti quei processi che non sono imbrigliati di un ragionamento logico.
I Mythos, che emerge come un linguaggio di immagine, è il preambolo di quello che sarà perché contiene la verità si è svolto in forma di immagini.
Secondo Platone con la lingua logos e mythos lingua, possiamo dire la stessa cosa: il logos è la parola nel suo formalismo astratto, il mythos è il linguaggio della narrazione. Il logos è il linguaggio del logico e rifiuta il pathos mentre la lingua mythos è caratterizzato dal pathos.
linguaggio della narrazione non è degradata, ma esprime la verità, la “voce fundi” del tempo attraverso le metaphorizations e per la sua capacità di affermare la verità, per due millenni, si è preferito il linguaggio logos. La storia ci permette di capire la nostra vita e lo spirito del nostro tempo attraverso la metaforizzazione degli altri.
Pour Your Body Out by Pippilotti Rist erases the boundary between art and entertainment. The artist captivates the viewer, full of all sorts of provocation media, working on body perception, the unconscious, the size of sensory and emotional experience.
The screen and space are like an infinite and immersive dimension that incorporate the viewer into the projection’s flow until to open his vision. It’s like a big window that opens up on a parallel world made of the same stuff as dreams.
Is it not Pour Your Body Out by Pippilotti Rist a contemporary Panorama?
In 1787 Robert Barker patented The Panorama, the pre-movie 360º painted spectacle.
Catalysts: Artists Creating with Video, Sound, and Time, the MoMA Course by Randall Packer helped me a lot to reflect on our role in social networks and in various media, considering our role more as an experience of collective narration and as a social happening of contemporary and artistic mold.
We’ve become content’s producers and the Nam June Paik’s lesson resonates still alive today: everyone’s a broadcaster. In New York, Nam June Paik with his Porta Pack has experienced shooting outdoors and made the first broadcast run by an artist focused on a chaotic moment in New York: the day of Pope Paul VI visit in NYC. He showed the video the same evening in Greenwich Village, the Cafe Gogo, virtually live. Paik was the first of artists who made a real art event of the video’s report.
My connection with social networks has always been confrontational, perhaps because of need to protect my privacy.
Now I re-evaluated my position on that and I think we must be present at the forefront on the social networks for two simple reasons: to clarify our point of view and to convey the meaning of our thought in the best way possible.
Technology has been of great help to me both as regards the production aspect and both for what concerns the storage and communication of my art. I record my art works with the video camera and than I share them online on Instagram or others social networks, I like to remix my art and to make it transmedial.
I remember that I have always documented everything, even when there was a movie stills photographer where I worked, I liked to shoot everything and have my own point of view.
For years I carried my video camera with me, in my bag, for the need to document what happened around me.
My Panasonic camcorder that I took in 2006, has allowed me to produce and document a lot of works and therefore it is my analogic object of the heart, which I keep as a relic.
I still remember a video that I’ve filmed in 2009, the storyboard that I’ve written was ambiented in the subway in Rome. My video wasn’t a commercial video, however, the Subway Direction had refused permission because it demanded a lot of money to approve it, but I didn’t want to give up the project or to change my storyboard.
I still remember the excitement while filming in Rome Metro. I was aware that if I had been surprised to shoot with my video camera the security men would have seized my videotape and maybe also my video camera ..
It’s been a few years since I shot my short film, but now, turning to the subway I see everyone to film everything, the privacy is dead, but maybe there is a positive side: if anything happens, it’s possible to acquire new trials because today our view is expanded, it’s stereoscopic: we’re all under surveillance but we also can monitor the others.
The video camera is my third eye, with which I record everything: everyday events and those things related to my work. I replaced my Panasonic video camera with an iPhone and a Samsung Tab 3, most technologically advanced.
And I think it’s important to document everything because otherwise a piece of reality would not have existence, it could be the access key that it could return an important point of view to better understand the contemporary reality.
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“30 Days of Running in the Place” is the multimedia installation of Ahmed Basiouny, a multimedia artist Egyptian that has represented the Egypt at 54. International Art Exhibition in Venice, at Biennale Gardens. I was impressed by 30 Days of Running in the Place for the power of the social and political message that was transmitted.
Before we get to the work’s meaning, it is best to take a step back to remember Ahmed Basiouny.
Ahmed Basiouny was an artist and university lecturer, he has been one of the most significant figures in the new generation of contemporary Egyptians artists. He was been a great pioneer of the New Media Art in Egypt and a symbol of the new “digital generation”, who taking advantage of media spread (social networks, blogs, etc..), he has tried to abolish the authoritarian regime opening the way to democracy.
Ahmed Basiouny is killed in Tahrir Square by snipers and then crushed with a police car during the third day of protests and he became a symbol of the sacrifices endured by the revolutionaries. Basiouny is killed while filming the protests in Tahrir Square with his video camera that is confiscated then by the police near his body. “30 Days of Running in the Place” has been possible to realize it because the artist had documented all things also with a phone and therefore his work is an exceptional document that exceeds the concept of art.
Ahmed Basiony: 30 Days of Running in the Space. Egypt Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2011. Giardini della Biennale, Venice / Italy. Photos by Magdi Mostafa; Copyright the Ahmed Basiony Family
” 30 Days of Running in the Place” is an installation that involves with a great narration creating a strong bond with the historical events of the Egyptian revolution.
The five giant screens in the Egyptian Pavilion have shown raw footage of the revolts on the streets of Cairo: men, women and children that fight for freedom against the regime.
In parallel with the images of the revolution ran on screens even the pictures of a performance which refers to a project that Ahmed Basiouny had exhibited outside the Palace of Arts in Cairo, near to Tahrir Square. For 30 days, the artist was jogging everyday for an hour in a square structure enclosed in transparent plastic sheets. Ahmed Basiouny wore a suit that measured the artist’s number of steps and levels of sweat produced. This data was wirelessly transferred to a large screen, thus altering the displayed grid of colors.
” 30 Days of Running in the Place” is an installation that shakes the foundations of all our smaller residual certainties bringing us back to a central and critical role in the story through the powerful narration returned by the artist.
Copyright the Ahmed Basiony Family
I think that the media, like television, continually remind us of human tragedies and revolutions talking about those ones as statistical data, creating a sort of barrier between our certainties and the rest of the world. This is the other cynical aspect that emerges in our consumer society: the violent and tragic breaking news arrive continually and they’ll be forgotten every day. Andy Warhol gave an idea of the death as denial implemented by our society. Since it has become taboo fetish, Warhol has rehabilitated the advertising image, impoverished of any emotion.
The Ahmed Basiouny’s multimedia art, through the technology, it can be read as a caustic attack on the indifference of the regime and television that reduce the people to simple statistical data, not giving voice to the needs of individual freedom .
In this case, the open source technology has been chosen to denounce an imposed power while the mobile technology, such as the phones, to push as far as possible his desperate cry for freedom and justice, creating a moment of intense reflection and collective narration.
The Times of April 27, 1937 has written with heartless tones and without comments about the Guernica’s tragedy while Picasso with Guernica called for all the intellectuals and the people to stand in defense of the democracy and freedom.
Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso. Copyright Pablo Picasso Org.
“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes if he’s a painter, ears if he’s a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he’s a poet – or even, if he’s a boxer, only some muscles? Quite the contrary, he is at the same time a political being constantly alert to the horrifying, passionate or pleasing events in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How is it possible to be uninterested in other men and by virtue of what cold nonchalance can you detach yourself from the life that they supply so copiously? No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.” Pablo Picasso
The Picasso’s Guernica, developed a system full of symbolic references to art history and cinema using the filter of artistic transfiguration, which has the same strength of the Greek tragedies .
The Ahmed Basiouny’s body, performance and video images are the message of the revolution, it’s an art so radical that connects art and life. The Ahmed Basiouny’s Swan song which rises to universal loud cry of pain against oppression and abuse. And the death of the artist becomes an event that echoes in his art, which is part of “30 Days of Running in the Place”.
The art becomes so a device supported by reasons civilians in order to avoid subjectivism and individualism, a best practice to demonstrate precise stances on the reality.
This is an utopia: if we think that the art can renounce to the ethical and political meaning.
I very much enjoyed the interview with Barbara London of Randall Packer on the video art, with the deepening of the most important video artists like Nam June Paike, Steina and Woody Vasulka, and the influence that the video art has had on the media arts.
The video art phenomenon, multi-faceted and difficult to define, it’s to be regarded as a constitution of a “cultural background” exploded in United States and then quickly spread to several Countries. In particular New York has received the most diverse artistic trends, developing all areas: painting, music, theater and movie. The reason for this unprecedented development is the emigration of many artists and cultural figures from all the world such as Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp which with the ready-made has introduced the concept of “randomness”.
The video art story has incorporat the entire history of modern art in its technology: Pointillism, Futurism, Dadaism, Body-art, Conceptual, Experimental Cinema, etc..
The normal linear narration, with the electronic art, is replaced from a dynamic and multi-faceted reality. We can identify in video art: the dynamic synthesis of the Futurism’s languages; the casual combination, playful and spontaneous, like the Dadaism and the Surrealism’s free associations created from the unconscious.
The image temporal dimension with video art runs parallel to life, this aspect is already known to television that with it is born the real time.
Emblematically, the video art testifies the passing of the baton from a natural vision to a totally virtual one. The video art shows the correspondences between the different sensorial perceptions and the most diverse artistic languages.
The synaesthetic vision is the synthesis of sensorial perceptions which has a total simultaneity, this aspect was introduced for the first time in Correspondences, the Baudelaire’s verses. Correspondences is taken from The Flowers of Evil’s poetry by Charles Baudelaire.
Baudelaire has inscribed in the essay his own poem, “Correspondences,” as a translation of Wagner’s music.
Letter from Charles Baudelaire to Richard Wagner
We are not living today in a synaesthesia between real and virtual?
“(…) As the lights go down (Richard Wagner’s invention), and the screen stretches wide across the stage, a world is unveiled, where we lose ourselves in a fabricated world in which reality disappears: we have entered a new reality (or post reality) as in a deep sleep full of vivid dreams, where we encounter the in-betweenness. Although we may remain physically in our seat, our awareness embeds itself into the space of the imaginary.” Randal Packer
“What is collective intelligence? It is a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills… My initial premise is based on the notion of a universally distributed intelligence. No one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity… New communications systems should provide members of a community with the means to coordinate their interactions within the same virtual universe of knowledge. This is not simply a matter of modeling the conventional physical environment, but of of enabling members of delocalized communities to interact within a mobile landscape of signification… Before we can mobilize skills, we have to identify them. And to do so, we have to recognize them in all their diversity…” Pierre Levy
According to Levy, collective intelligence is the product of the community’s collective memory and becomes a project when the man provides the tools that allow interaction between users.
The changes taking place in our social and economic system show us that we entered in the era of knowledge and social networks are becoming more important tools for the users number. Blogs and Social networks are the expression of a writing that, more often than not, takes the form of storytelling: tell us of our existence but we also express our point of view compared to social, political, economic changes of which we are spectators / actors.
Today, social networks have revolutionized not only the way to communicate but also our lives. We interact with a global audience through internet, we are all projected into the flow of change, an epic change that has definitely revolutionized the way we conform to world.
I always use social networks to communicate and share ideas and contents.
We students at Catalysts: Artists Creating with Video, Sound, and Time, the MoMA Course by Randall Packer, we are connected one another in the study and participate together to online debate. It’s a course that provides a horizon of “augmented reality” for the knowledge through an interactive learning that takes place with non-linear and informal processes.
“This interweaving of personal sharing, storytelling, and memories, constitutes (in my opinion) an idea akin to performance and the Happening.” Randall Packer
I fully support what Randall Packer has said. Social networks have in common with the Happening the fleeting time. The Happening represents antithetical values of the academic art universe like social networks break the verticality imposed by television, which is an amalgam of informations programmed and applied under restrictive conditions, with no possibility of replication by the users considered like passive consumers of “contents” produced to cover up the truth, not to reveal it, ultimately to impose political or commercial messages. The other important aspect that connects the social networks to the Happening, it concerns the political aspect, the position of participants. They highlight or denounce social issues particularly important and critical.
“For the video artist Wolf Vostell the Television medium becomes the ready-made for excellence. In his installations, the monitors are placed between industrial waste and they become totemic objects of a social and historical condition chilling: as in Endogenous Depression (1975) with various televisions and radios encased in cement and turkeys left to wander around the exhibition.” Gabriella Parisi
I think we are in a scenario very similar to that predicted in 1984 by George Orwell and Fahrenheit 451 by François Truffaut, which highlight the idea of a centralized and dictatorial politics of the knowledge with the television medium. In Fahrenheit 451, the television is a control instrument of the power placed in all homes and it forces people to a blind allegiance to regime. Books and the magazines are considered outlaws because they help people to form an independent e personal opinion and to rebel.
In some Countries of the world, with a totalitarian State, social networks are prohibited and obscured so as to prevent more effectively the widespread diffusion of knowledge and to impose the regime’s ideas.
Just consider the fact of viral participation that social networks have taken in recent revolutions like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Egypt, Iran. Even traditional journalism has been put into serious question by bloggers and by online readers, more and more informed and active part of the reporting process.
Italy’s “Forconi” movement – The Forconi (“Pitchfork”) movement has been making headlines in Italy for the past two weeks. On Monday, December 9, the movement called for action across the country, in the course of which town halls were surrounded, roadways blocked and train stations occupied in Milan, Turin, Venice, Bari and in Palermo in southern Italy. There were repeated clashes with police. The protests were directed against the government led by Enrico Letta and its austerity policies, corrupt politicians, the finance ministry, rising fuel prices, the banks, the euro and the European Union (EU). They generally took place with a sea of red, white and green flags and the singing of the national anthem. The main slogan, aimed at politicians, was “Sack all of them!”
I have always used Twitter as instrument to denounce of political situation in Italy and I have protested online like other millions of Italians. A “twitt storm” has created information, cohesion and protest movements developed later live.
Well, I believe that all social networks have the great power to create the change, the users are carriers of contents and sense, what we share has a high performative aspect, and I would add augmented and immersive, in which, through the reflection expedient in shared contents, as we do in theater and in general throughout the art, we’ll come to a greater understanding of ourselves and contingent reality.
The myth of Carmen relives in a new feminist short film directed by Gabriella Parisi