Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding #3, 2005, video live installation (3 projectors + 1 live video feed+ 2 video delay video feed + 3 screens + paper + 2 trestles) Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, Italy
This is one of the two versions of the piece presented in 9 venues, and part of the project PRESENT MEMORY AND LIVENESS IN DELIVERY AND RECEPTION OF VIDEO DOCUMENTATION DURING PERFORMANCE ART EVENTS, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and conducted as post doctoral Research Fellow at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London.
Dealing with the presentness of memory through recollection in relation to technology long before today’s technology forces us to do so.
List of the Performances
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 1, ‘Performance Studies international # 11, Becoming Uncomfortable’, Brown University, Providence, RI (USA), 2005.
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 2, ‘International Conference Consciousness, Theatre, Literature and the Arts’, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK, 2005.
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 3, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAMeC), Bergamo Italy, 2005
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 4, proposal per PARIP, Breton Hal Leeds University
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 5, ‘Diverse Attitudini’, a cura di BOArt, Villa delle Rose, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Bologna, Italy, 2005.
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 6, ‘Transversalities: crossing disciplines, cultures and identities’, Departments of Film, Theatre & Television and Fine Art, University of Reading, 2005.
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 7, ‘Warmhole Saloon’, curator Joel Cahen, Whitechapel Art Gallery London, 2006.
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 8, in ‘Wonderful (Ibiscus section)’, Trieste, Italy, curator Maria Campitelli, June 2006
Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding # 9, Tapra Conference, Central School of Speech and Drama, London, October 2006
THE PIECE
action: I fold the paper, stop, recollect and describe places I lived in
projections: the three projections are live feed with a progression of 8 second delay
CONTEXT
…. #3 was presented and supported by Alessandro Rabottini and presented by Giacinto di Pietrantonio, then Director of the GAMeC Museum, who stated
‘Her work, combining various techniques and artistic practices, aims at analying the relationship between memory and past not only through the use of the sense of sight, but also trying to stimulate the multiplicity of the senses of our body, referring to the totality of the human being. A human being looking for the sense of life within the places of life, places activated or re-activated through art. In this sense, she belongs to that thread of research proposed by artists like Bruce Nauman, whom, in the relationship technique-body-action-psyche, wants to understand the essence of beings within a world where there is the need to reactivate archaic energies and react to the superficial society of spectacle’
EXTRACT
Performance Transcript (translation from Italian)
The spoken text (as is all following italics) alternates with the action:
the main entrance with a glass door and steel, the yellow glass door
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
As I walk in on the right a staircase two flights
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
Walking up the stairs, on the right a door to the bedrooms, through the door on the left a bedroom, on the right another one, on the left the bathroom and in front of me a bedroom
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
With an orange carpet, two beds very low in relation to this massive white wardrobe with golden reliefs
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
That wardrobe, before going to bed at night, would get enormous and I had the impression of it being like a wideangled photograph falling over me, it isn probably just a dream, and not even so
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
My bed was next to the window, my sister’s close to the door
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
Norsi Isola D’elba
At the top of the stairs a door to the left, as I walk in on the right the living room
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
Where the was a sofabed on the right the television, a table in the middle, a small balcony in front of it, then going tot eh left a room with two ..beds, three of us used to sleep in there
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
Walking out of our room on the left there was a bathroom and ahead my parents’ room with awindow onto the balcony with a beautiful seaview
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
77th Street Upper East Side
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
A three floor townhouse, walking in there is a staircase in front going tot the first floor, on the right hand side the entrance door,
As I walk in there is a large empty space, a folding bed in the corner, in front of me a door tp a bedroom without the bed and there is a bathroom,
on the left of this room there is a bowindow connected to the upper floor from where you can look down
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
This large room have green walls and to walk up to the upper floor one has to go out and walk up stairs where there is another big room which I believe is now the living room
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
I can’t remember the walls’ colour
Entering through the main door of the upper floor in front of it there is the kitchen,
a lot of space, my own space is tiny
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
Lincoln Square
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
A very tall building, as I walk in I go straight to the elevator andto the 8th floor, out of the elevator: on the right the main door, walking in on the left the very small kitchen with things I don’t know and in front the living room with a sofabed and a table for eating
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
On the left, no on the right of the hallway there is a bedroom with roughly half a metre around the bed and on the left…. there is the bathroom with shower curtains with ehhm… the shower has got a transparent plastic shower curtains with little fish and sea waves
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
Warren Street, Warren Street
A five floor townhouse with no lift, as I walk in the staircase is… red carpeted, walking up to the fifth floor, the door on the right, very small corridor, the first door on the left is the, the first on the right is a studio and bedroom,the second on the right is my bedroom, in i ton the left there is a fitted wardrobe with no doors, but a curtain hiding what’s behind, on the right a comfortable bed, and two windows overlooking the street, very noisy, walking out there is a living room with a kitchen
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
…a little old
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
Going back to my room from the living room and on the left there is a bookcase and two stones: one is a quartz and the other has got a blur which looks like a sunflower
Action: folding the stripe of paper from either sides
The above extracts are from the following Book
Cologni, E, ed, Mnemonic Present, Shifting Meaning, Mercurio Edizioni, Vercelli, 2009, introduction by Helena Blaker, texts from Amelia Jones, Kelina Gotman, Andrea Lissoni, Giacinto DiPietrantonio, Aurelio Andrighetto, Lib Taylor
further publications
Cologni, E. (2005).Fruition: perceptual time ‘gap’ as location for knowledge – Mnemonic Present Un-folding, Perspective section of Body, Space & Technology, (05)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant for Creative and Performing Arts)
