Original Landscape - Moving paintings of New Zealander nature
(version française ici)
(versione italiana qui)
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The project that I’d like to realise thanks to the precious help of donators is a visual research on virgin landscape of New Zealand. I’m interested in nature and its representation by means of digital media. My work often takes form of moving paintings.
Since the beginning of my artistic vocation, landscape has represented a strong appeal to my sensibility. I grow up in Italy in a small town just at the feet of the volcano Etna, whose presence manifested to me not through fear, nor the devotion typical of most of Sicilians for this mountain. For me it was above all an incredible visual presence.
Filming landscapes is not a novelty. The Lumière brothers were the first landscape artists with a camera. But since then, film-stock’s chemicals have constantly changed, till being replaced by magnetic strips and finally by a mathematic reduction system acting directly on the captured images. The computerisation of recording devices finalised the process of disconnection between man and nature.
Methodology The experimentation I conducted in the last few years, demonstrated that it is possible to restore the intimate original connection with landscape. The creative act itself has the function of approaching man to the forgotten nature, through repeated observations and the attention devoted to its peculiarities. Thanks to these experimentations, I know my instruments and developed some methodologies of observation and production of video-landscapes. In each of them, visual form is directly influenced by the subject. That is, what happens in front of the lens determines the way the landscape is observed and treated in the artwork. The form of moving paintings reminds the tradition of landscape in art history. |
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My visual research started in the middle of my mother country’s nature. Afterwards the everyday reality of English parks and Parisian urban landscapes - locations of my studies and my working activity - found its form of expression with the Structuralist approach, a method of artistic research that does not try to conceal the instruments of creation. On the contrary, the medium is used in order to find a truth that would be otherwise impossible to catch just by “imitating” reality.
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Locations
New Zealand, with its ancestral richness, its biodiversity and the wild aspect of most of its territory, represents the favourite destination for the progression of my pathway, and, at the same time, a challenge, the invitation to act in the field and to break the routine. Leaving the known for an unknown world that asks to be lived and explored. It is a fascinating place in which natural beauty is not confined to small parks. Instead it becomes protagonist through its powerful visual presence.
During the development of this project, local indigenes populations will have a very important role: Maoris have a strong knowledge of their territory, of its symbolic meanings, the spiritual links between communities and their environment – all elements that will bring to the project an essential richness. One of the possible destinations could be the National Park of Tongariro, on the middle of northern island, because of its spiritual importance for Maoris.
Organisation
For the realisation of this project I consider a period from six to twelve moths (approximately from August 2013), which includes travels in the country, observation, exploration, collection of footages and pictures, besides the achievement of a deep knowledge of the locations with whom I will undertake a constructive dialogue, all things which represent the necessary steps in order to catch the intrinsic truth of every landscape.
My collaborator will be the biologist Elena Cienfuegos – currently engaged in Sea Shepherd anti-whaling campaign in the Antarctic Seas – whom I esteem for her skills in environmental and scientific fields, her courage and her capability of adaptation to every kind of situations.
The indicated budget of 10000 euros represents an important help to fund displacements (3000-4000 euros), buying part of the equipment (particularly wide-angle and telephoto lenses, and filters appropriate for recording of landscape, 3000-3500 euros) as well as the distribution/dissemination of the realised artwork (posters, rental of spaces for exhibition, monitors installations, video-projectors, authorisations, etc. 3000-4000 euros).
Dissemination
At the end of the activities “in the field”, the realised work (most likely a series of works) will be showed as projection and/or LCD monitors installation, in galleries and especially in external spaces of towns and villages – a collaboration with municipalities will be appreciated – in New Zealand as well as in France and the rest of Europe. The dissemination of the work will be also assured of course by video sharing platforms, social networks and a dedicated website.
Screenings will be conceived as moments of contemplation. Aim is the retransmission of the feelings experienced facing the beauty of nature, to an extended public, which will be reached through the non-conventional utilisation of digital video’s “palette”. New feelings will also emerge from the observation of the digitalised landscapes: thanks to the special treatment of the images, people will immerse in an experience of nature that reminds man’s origins, an era in which events were contemplated by means of virgin eyes.
By sensitising man towards a renewed approach to landscape and contemplation of it, the binary translation of reality – which seems today to be becoming as important as reality itself – could therefore reach a superior goal.
Thanks
In order to thank all of you for your donation, some interesting gifts are proposed in return!
2 € or more: your name will appear in the “special thanks” section of the project website
5 € or more: 3 high definition photos of the shooting, sent by email + previous perk
10 € or more: a series of 4 high definition consecutive frames, taken from one of the moving landscapes, sent by email + previous perks
30 € or more: a photo of the shooting signed by the author, sent by mail + previous perks
50 € or more: a series of 3 consecutive frames, taken from one of the moving landscapes, signed by the author, sent by mail + your name in the end credits of a moving landscape + invitations to screenings and exhibitions of the work + previous perks
100 € or more: a moving landscape with personal dedication on credits, sent by internet link + previous perks
200 € or more: a photo of the shooting retreated in limited edition and signed by the author, sent by mail + previous perks
500 € or more: a moving landscape in a 7” digital frame, sent by mail + your name as “associate producer” in the end credits of a moving landscape + previous perks
1000 € or more: a moving landscape in a 13” digital frame with personal dedication on credits, sent by mail + previous perks (except 7” frame)
New Zealand, with its ancestral richness, its biodiversity and the wild aspect of most of its territory, represents the favourite destination for the progression of my pathway, and, at the same time, a challenge, the invitation to act in the field and to break the routine. Leaving the known for an unknown world that asks to be lived and explored. It is a fascinating place in which natural beauty is not confined to small parks. Instead it becomes protagonist through its powerful visual presence.
During the development of this project, local indigenes populations will have a very important role: Maoris have a strong knowledge of their territory, of its symbolic meanings, the spiritual links between communities and their environment – all elements that will bring to the project an essential richness. One of the possible destinations could be the National Park of Tongariro, on the middle of northern island, because of its spiritual importance for Maoris.
Organisation
For the realisation of this project I consider a period from six to twelve moths (approximately from August 2013), which includes travels in the country, observation, exploration, collection of footages and pictures, besides the achievement of a deep knowledge of the locations with whom I will undertake a constructive dialogue, all things which represent the necessary steps in order to catch the intrinsic truth of every landscape.
My collaborator will be the biologist Elena Cienfuegos – currently engaged in Sea Shepherd anti-whaling campaign in the Antarctic Seas – whom I esteem for her skills in environmental and scientific fields, her courage and her capability of adaptation to every kind of situations.
The indicated budget of 10000 euros represents an important help to fund displacements (3000-4000 euros), buying part of the equipment (particularly wide-angle and telephoto lenses, and filters appropriate for recording of landscape, 3000-3500 euros) as well as the distribution/dissemination of the realised artwork (posters, rental of spaces for exhibition, monitors installations, video-projectors, authorisations, etc. 3000-4000 euros).
Dissemination
At the end of the activities “in the field”, the realised work (most likely a series of works) will be showed as projection and/or LCD monitors installation, in galleries and especially in external spaces of towns and villages – a collaboration with municipalities will be appreciated – in New Zealand as well as in France and the rest of Europe. The dissemination of the work will be also assured of course by video sharing platforms, social networks and a dedicated website.
Screenings will be conceived as moments of contemplation. Aim is the retransmission of the feelings experienced facing the beauty of nature, to an extended public, which will be reached through the non-conventional utilisation of digital video’s “palette”. New feelings will also emerge from the observation of the digitalised landscapes: thanks to the special treatment of the images, people will immerse in an experience of nature that reminds man’s origins, an era in which events were contemplated by means of virgin eyes.
By sensitising man towards a renewed approach to landscape and contemplation of it, the binary translation of reality – which seems today to be becoming as important as reality itself – could therefore reach a superior goal.
Thanks
In order to thank all of you for your donation, some interesting gifts are proposed in return!
2 € or more: your name will appear in the “special thanks” section of the project website
5 € or more: 3 high definition photos of the shooting, sent by email + previous perk
10 € or more: a series of 4 high definition consecutive frames, taken from one of the moving landscapes, sent by email + previous perks
30 € or more: a photo of the shooting signed by the author, sent by mail + previous perks
50 € or more: a series of 3 consecutive frames, taken from one of the moving landscapes, signed by the author, sent by mail + your name in the end credits of a moving landscape + invitations to screenings and exhibitions of the work + previous perks
100 € or more: a moving landscape with personal dedication on credits, sent by internet link + previous perks
200 € or more: a photo of the shooting retreated in limited edition and signed by the author, sent by mail + previous perks
500 € or more: a moving landscape in a 7” digital frame, sent by mail + your name as “associate producer” in the end credits of a moving landscape + previous perks
1000 € or more: a moving landscape in a 13” digital frame with personal dedication on credits, sent by mail + previous perks (except 7” frame)