2006
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| Film still of Bellissima (Visconti) Anna Magnani and daughter | backstage, video still |
The work politecnico is a multipart installation which depicts a series events, initiated by the artists, which transpire on a film set, as well as those occurring behind the scenes. The installation deals with the mothers' aspirations vis à vis their daughters' careers. The emotions released here are oriented towards memories of a cinematic scene created by Visconti. The connection with Visconti's cinematic scene was communicated to the women beforehand in order to render transparent the frame of reference of their medial entrance while ensuring time for critical reflection regarding the project's implementation.
Repeated in a large projected video with the title Backstage are various brief scenes involving mothers and daughters who prepare themselves in a studio for an appearance before a camera, and who wait, along with countless others, behind and between various cameras. Projected on a smaller monitor, each mother makes a statement concerning her wishes for her daughter's future. On a second, smaller screen, we see the daughters dancing, reciting poetry, performing athletic exercises, and so on. Each of 10 photographic double portraits, shot against the background of the studio premises of the design department of a Milan university, documents a spontaneously improvised mother-child scenario.
Regarding the situation as a whole, the viewer remains in the state of uncertainty: what is really going on here? Apparently, a full length movie is not to be filmed, there is no glamour, and no grand entrances. The shots avoid disclosing their meanings. The whole remains ensnared in an ambiguous process, one that allows yearnings and ritualized patterns of behavior to appear, and which refers to brief present moments and to an imaginary future.
Presentation: wall construction with 3 videos (DVD) and 10 photographs
front: mamme, video monitor (5 min.); Töchter.Mütter, 10 lambda framed prints, each ca 90 x 70 cm; figlie, vertical flat screen video (5 min.)
back: backstage (video), beamer projection (15 min.), soundtrack with speakers
video (backstage)
main project