Riccardo's first draft ToP
going to add a new version latest at 9:40
1. What have you been making? + 2. How did you do it? (method)
This year I have been researching on the ways of perceiving and the ways of deploying colours and light. I did so by carrying different approaches.
In the work For Seven Time We Woke Up developed for the Eye Research Labs, I have been studying the technological staging of colours - as editable materialities in the context of software editing and software development - and their effects on perception. I started this process after founding, during a bike tour in Rotterdam organised by Leslie Robbins, Becoming Invisible, a book from Ian Whittlesea where in a meditation exercise based on breathing techniques and the imaginative synthesis of colours clouds is carried on for the esoteric purpose of becoming invisible. At the age of 11 I had a similar experience. At that time my mother was carrying on a variation of this type of meditation with the aim of healing, successfully she later said, a disease. Under her guide I experienced the exercise myself, resulting in a feeling of deep relaxation and strong physical awareness. With the idea of translating the book of Ian Whittlesea into a moving-image piece, I firstly tried to have on-screen text that gave indication on the steps to follow, but then decided to spoil the vision of any direct instruction and to gave space to the evolution of a colour choreography. Rather than giving to the audience the feeling of being following a meditation, I decided to work on my own abilities of structuring sound and colours into a time-based experience, resulting in an immersive journey that I would describe as an atmospheric narrative.
As part of this research on light and colours, this year, in the film Yellow Message I got together three shoots based on the observation of atmospheric changes. How lights changes over the course of an hour? How is it refracted when the leafs are moved by wind? How it encounters the textile of a flag upon which the shadows of branches of a nearby tree are cast? This film combines footage that I took in Sansepolcro (IT) during a period of study to learn the practice of flag waving, with recordings made in a little swamp situated in the south of Rotterdam. The three scenes that forms the movie are formally associated by the presence of the colour yellow, while the main subject is the light and its way of interacting with different materialities.
Throughout this two movies I feel to be exploring concept as opacity and transparency and how this physical dynamics of overlaying and overlapping construct images. I feel these do be metaphors of an approach oriented toward the appreciation of phenomenas that take place all round us, from site-specific locations to synthetic landscapes, from the light emitted by the sun to the one rendered by computational engines, and that suggests a strong sense of appreciation of the materialities surrounding us, and makes me able to celebrate rituals, the coming together in a place to watch and listen.
3. Relation to previous practice
Both light and sound acts in the range of a spectrum of waves, the first through electromagnetic waves the second through acoustic waves. As composer, in the past year I have been working with sounds by developing my own software and implementing digital signal processing techniques that acts as filters, reverbs and distortions. This year I developed a new sound performance (you can listen it with the mp3 Live Electronics @ Sonoscopia) where I treat sounds recordings of a french horn as if they are light waves filtered by prisms. In similar ways this year, especially with For Seven Times We Woke Up, I have been working with light as I would with sound, through filters that alters the perception of an original image. (maybe expand more?) For me it has been particularly challenging the creation of a system to generate this video. This system involves both generative parameters (the movement of the spheres is generated by mathematical functions that distributes partially-random values) and precise automations written as a score to be followed. The combination of these aspects had to be recorded in high quality, and so I developed my own code to synchronise generative parameters and written automation to compute the frame and exporting it in non-real time: each frame takes several minutes to be computed, and when computed, the system goes on computing the following one. This is a workflow that I am developing since two years, and during the creation of this movie I reached a good stage of development that gives me a good base for further use and development.
(connection with dance and theater, and the movement toward narration? Add reference to seminars!) Inspired by practices as dance and music I am interest in the movements between postures, and the pace with which these changes are carried: sometimes this lead to animated movies, others to virtual photographies.
4. What do you want to make next? 5. Why do you want to make it?
A living room with a kid playing video games and his mother keeping him company, engaging with the action on the screen and trying to make contact by commenting on the games dynamics. The two characters are not shown, instead, the camera investigates the living room: the curtains hitten by light, a painting on the wall, the rumba floor cleaner, death natures, furniture. Sometimes there is no dialogue carried on, and the sound alone suggest the type of videogame that is being played. Sometimes the montage jump between different moment of the day and the night. After a sequence of room explorations and dialogues, the kid, scrolling trough a content manager where you can select what to play (always suggested tough sounds), find a free game ‘Enter the ♥’. The kid decide to try the game and starts to play it. The camera now arrives to the monitor, and enters into it (at a certain point there will be a switch between the camera viewpoint and virtual camera viewpoint. The film now proceed with almost no words, but solely the music and visual, with some sounds from the household.
The dialogue between the two characters revolves around the notion of adventure, making great deeds, treasures to be founded in dangerous dungeons, goods to be taken, worlds to be explored. The mother of the young kid tries to push forward the idea of spending time to take care, nurture and grow, instead of ravaging and exploit. I imagine a work that is serene, sad, meaningful, boring and cathartic.
This film wants to address the violence embedded into videogames by introducing reflections on the role of spending time playing and celebrating life with actions, until reaching a final part where it becomes an act of meditation and listening.
6. Relation to a larger context 7. References
The light rooms of Dan Flavin, the discs of Robert Irwin, the Skyspaces of James Turrell and the Ganzfeld, are inspiring me to explore interactions between light and architecture, if not digital architectures and natural landscapes (rendering engines vs the sun). Filmmaker and visual artist Pipilotti Rist says that one of the main subjects in her works is self-censorship. In the movie ‘Pepperminta’ the main character deploys the power of colour as an antidote to awake emotional intelligence, boost the immune system and overcoming one’s fear. I find her work a strong inspiration for the playfulness and irreverence of her approach. Composer and sculptor Charlemagne Palestine with his drone music and puppets, microtonal music. Phil Niblock with his sampling rudimental techniques. James Benning with his slow cinema. Samsara by Lois Patiño, engagement with local cultures, slow tempo that opens imagination, A\V meditations. Zone of interest by Jonathan Glazer for the use of sound and the relation between foreground and background. Lolo & Sosaku by Sergio Caballero, for the hacking of the western gender, the border crossing between fiction and documentation, the performativity of the actors.