Videoakt Biennial @ Institut Français, Barcelona, Spain. International artists deeply connected with nature. Curated by Macu Morán. The Works of these “Soldiers of Life” emanate their compromise with the environment, their duty of protecting nature and their responsibility in the progressive development of a sustainable civilization within our planet.
The direction of scientific and technological developments towards the human thrive is not guaranteed. On the contrary, the interests of a runaway economic greed are driving today’s research and progress. This means a threat for the future of our planet, the human being and Life.
SELECTION OF WORKS:
AGNI ZOTIS : Tree of life, 28'', 2012. Tree of Life July 2012, filmed during a personal odyssey, returning to Greece after 20 years. The simple act of reaching, receiving, enjoying a fruit in its purest form, from an abundant wild tree on the family land. The earth constantly provides us with nourishment. For humanity to sustain itself, it has to reconnect to nature.
ALBERT MERINO : Les Baigneurs, 3’ 30”, 2010. The everyday urban landscape hides residual spaces that often go unnoticed by the observer. These spaces are used to recreate some illustrations, that served as inspiration for painters of the 19th and 20th centuries. In these, the idealized landscape together with its humanist spirit are replaced by a stale environment that itself is a metaphor for a paradigm change of the person who lives there.
CÉSAR ORDÓÑEZ : La intimidad II, 3’ 18”, 2010. The series “Intimacy” presents a reflection on the value of privacy in an urban environment, as the private sphere of every person with a physical and also emotional point of view. And far beyond what the law say, the mutual respect for this “space” is only possible in a society that perceives it as a common good. Made with captured images of streets and parks in Tokyo, this work aims to reveal that healthy coexistence and harmony between nature and urban life is possible.
CARLOS VILLAR : Autumn's Shade, 2011, 2’05”. This video is created with a goal, to enjoy every instant of it picture by picture, a piece that lets your imaginary flow, devoid of symbolism and / or argument. Its cromatic palette consists of the shades of the fall, the lack of narrative is its “leitmotiv”.
PAULA ANTA : Talea, 2013, 2’00''. Talea takes as its starting point a musical work by the French contemporary composer Gérard Grisey, from where it appropriates to a part of the title: Talea ou la machine et les herbes folles, altough it also refers to the musical term isorythm, a scheme used as matrix to compose images.
CRISTINA PAVESI: Inside the earth, 2011, 3’00”. This is a video landscape, the interior of a canyon is reconstructed by subjective emotions without narrative or descriptive purposes. Antelope Canyon in Arizona is an evocative place, going inside made me think to the belly of the earth for a rebirth, the color obtained with the contrast of images reminds living flesh. Mariolina’s music well suits to the environment: it is recorded in a cave beating stalactites and stalagmites, while the initial and final heartbeat closes the life cycle.
EVGENIA MEN: White Black Hot, 3’00”, 2013. The work Whit Black Hot captures and treats the abstract mystery of Wai-O-Tapu geyser land in New Zealand. The abstraction gets the viewer into a meditative visual trance, which helps connecting and admiring the force of Nature.
DANIEL SILVO: Sisifo, 3’20”, 2006. This video is a recreation of the mythological figure Sisyphus, represented in nature. The waves wash the coconuts again and again up to the shore. In a cyclic image where we can observe how nature behaves. Through the small Micro World of the beach of Acapulco, we can understand how man actually is only another small element, and despite our behavior towards nature we are subject to these cycles.
MIKHAIL BASOV: Myrmicon, 4’46”, 2009. Michael Basov’s work “Myrmicon” captures the movements of ants and intricate ornaments of their paths. Creating a “possible world”, in which ants can produce meaningful images, he tried to re-evoke the feeling of mystery and enchantment in the audience akin to that of the pristine artist. The first drawings were filled with magic. The discovery of a mere possibility to depict things with lines could be as incredible as an image created by an ant under our eyes. Thus, we may recognize the very origins of the human culture in these strange drawings and in our own experience of a miracle.
CHRISTINE SCIULLI: Atomic Tango, 4’45”, 2001. Atomic Tango is a collaboration between the visual artist Cristine Sciulli and the electroacoustic composer Doug Geers. It explores the juxtaposition of idealized American suburban life with reality. The film do location in Mexico and suburban Philadelphia. The artist footage is mixed with the footage from the 1982 film Atomic Café.
JUAN CARLOS SANCHEZ DUQUE: Still Dead, 9’12”, 2011. Still dead is a video installation produced in HD. In this work there are natural beings animated caught during the night in a frenzy of movement and activity but illuminated by a fatuous light that turns them into beings more nearby to the death than to the life.
RAIBER GONZALEZ: Skyline & Birds, 2’47”, 2013. Birds on the eternal quest of her los place. Real Time Vjing sesión on VDMX software, with patch developed on Quartz Composer with the help of 1024 plugin developed por Francois Wunschel and Pierre Schneider, ilustrations of Javi Boullosa and music from DUB-FX.
