Archive for April, 2010

Poetry for Liberation

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Today, to have a moment of memory for the 25 of april, with Asbesto and Massimo we meet in front of the Italian Institute of Culture barred door to share some words for the liberation day…

You can listen to the file here…

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And by the way these are the authors of the poems we read:

Franco Fortini, Italia 1942
Corrado Govoni, da Aladino, LXXXI
Giorgio Bassani, Non piangere, compagno
Vasco Pratolini, Dianzi le raffiche
Cesare Pavese, da La terra e la morte, Tu non sai le colline
Pier Paolo Pasolini, da Vittoria, Dove sono le armi?

you can find the texts here: http://www.artestoria.com/poeti.htm

Addenda:
Slowly moving away from the Cultural Center, walking Iargumented slowly with Massimo. We reflected about participation, memory, the sense of what we do, with the suspect of being totally un-necessary, obsolete, alone or aristocratic, that is the same thing. As someone already knows, desperately, some time ago, I wrote a mock-manifesto, the altrovist manifesto, that had some response when a friend asked me to read it for his camera.
Apparently we walked away from Italy, still we are connected to it.
We parted without a real conclusion. What is it that we are doing?

Then this morning I listen to the intervention of Roberto Saviano at the International Journalist Festival in Perugia, rebroadcasted from “il fatto” newspaper website. Saviano is illuminating. He talks of Jan Vigo. Of his film:”Atlante”, that is famous in italy because is part of a very long standing night program for cinefiles. About a story. How if you throw yourself in the water and go as deep as you can, to the point of almost suffocating, in that moment you will see the image of what you have really loved…

Listen the story from the lips of Saviano…

Maybe another layer to our “altrovist” position, that has many. You should be somewhere else, in another place, to build a culture…

Rings in the Sun’s Shadow

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Taken from Repubblica.it

Umbra solis, Luna in quam umbra solis cadit in eclipsi, materia nigra putrefacta quam Latonam vocant Maier Embl. p. 134, 135. Th. Ch. v. 3. p. 29. Luna seu aqua nostra permanens, sulphurea, viva, spiritualis, ignea, munda, lucida, clara caelestem habens colorem, aqua qua sol emendatur quaeque ex fimo nigro per elementorum separationem purificationem & sublimationem extrahitur, estque ignis aurum comburens & confingens magis quam ignis vulgi. Rosar. abbr. Tract. v. p. 670, 671. Rosar, magn. p. 244. Tractatus Bernardo Trevisano ascriptus in Tractatibus aliquot Chem. p. 21. quo Sol corrumpitur (Consil. conjug. p. 197.) Luna (ib. p. 136, 197, 198 & Tract. Bernardi p. 27. Rosar magn. p. 245.) nigredo saturnia (Allegor. sap. p. 81)

The White People

Friday, April 16th, 2010

San Sebastiano Today Rotterdam.
One hour of train, some bus and I wake up Tarek. Is 13:30. Is maybe time to have some breackfast. Not easy in his part of town. Buildings were people sleep, few shops around, loads of roadworks, send, iron spikes, cement.

The influence of the volcanic blast resounds in the silent sky. No strange plane stripes to cut the blue. We walk a bit. We chat. We enter a barely passable place and have a tea, a sandwich. We talk films. Is great to chat with Tarek about films.

On the way there I read his new script. Is going to be shoot sooner or later and I would be honoured to be of the party. We talk actors. Acressess, Godard, Fellini, Antonioni. Our usual ride, to put us in the mood.

At his house again to see what Tarek have been doing for a couple days with the RED footage made in the 19th March. The shooting of the White People short. The guys are great, all of them, I feel very proud… just few minutes of work together. They have so much inside… the film shot by Victor looks gorgeous and is already there, in fact. Lot of work is to be done, with the text that has to be adapted and the sound, but it’s got the look already and the rhythm. All I wanted to see. Got a copy in my hard drive, to work on sound and on dialogue. Is going to be a funny week with many many things to do.

I started on the way beck to write down the proposal draft to send to Piksel festival in Norway. Tonight I’ll put some on the wiki maybe.

Volcanoes

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Ash plume from Eyjafjallajokull Volcano over the North Atlantic

Ash plume from Eyjafjallajokull Volcano over the North Atlantic

Silence in the sky over me. No tracks of jets. A mellow yellow clowd of ashes hangs over north Europe. Stratovolcano in iceland exploded. Lava, ice, melted ice. A pony with ashes on his back shakes nervously from my connection with BBC.
The sky is empty.

I keep working on the film called “Volcanoes”. A story of artists and dreamers that confront with the volcanic power of futurist avant-garde 100 years later. Ten days ago I was shooting in Sicily, an hartbeat from “Iddu”, the way in Stromboli they call their Volcano. With respect and pride. A shake and we go down to the sea. A shake and the sky is quiet again.
My work for Volcanoes (the film) is still not bringing me to the editing table. I still need to shoot some of the key interview. But I have great footage of sicilian volcanic folklore to use as a backdrop, of futurist art to show the proximity between their colors and the real ones, and of nowadays futurist art.

Is going to take some more time but is going to come out a good film.

A new start

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Umbra Solis is my own mirror. And is a collective project, but so far is only me. I am a moltitude, I am my own collective. Maybe more people will join in with time. Maybe many have already joined and I am lying. To myself?

Umbra solis is the moon, the other, the alter-ego. A Zenith carries a Nadir. But is not exactly an opposite, a dark companion.

Umbra Ergo Sol Solis. Inumbro Ergo Sum
I cast a shadow, therefore I am.

C.G. Jung, in Psychoterapy:

The impulses underlying it certainly show their dark side to begin with, however much one may try to whitewash them; for an integral part of the work is the umbra solis or the Sol Niger of the alchemists, the black shadow which everybody carries with him, the inferior and therefore hidden aspect of the personality, the weakness that goes with every strength, the night that follows every day, the evil in the good.

Umbra solis is a shadow project. It collects some work done as research, and some presented as stand alone in various years in wich I have worked on art projects, alone, within my multitude.