Directors lounge: The Destructive Power of Happiness
Video and Film Works by Riccardo Iacono
Thursday, 23 September 2010, 21h
Z-Bar, Bergstraße 2, 10115 Berlin-Mitte

Riccardo Iacono, London-based artist and filmmaker, presents a selection of films and video from three different bodies of work: abstract videos, hand-painted films and performance tapes (produced between 1993-2007).

“The title of the programme has nothing to do with the works that will be screening, I just found it interesting” — his statement already shows a quality also to be found in his work; with a gentle sarcasm, he likes to confront prejudices with opposing strategies. The trained painter (Glasgow School of Art) found his way to 16mm film through video collaborations with musicians both in contemporary Musique Concr ète and rave events. ”A major influence on my early work was William Burroughs' Electronic Revolution (1970), which discusses the use of recording, looping and feedback to stimulate and escalate riots.”… “I began making abstract hand-painted films in 1993, following a screening of Stan Brakhage and Pat O'Neil films on Television. I started to read books by Brakhage, but there were limited resources for seeing artists' moving image works in Glasgow back in the late 80's.”

In his process of working with film, the painted film became the silent musical score for the making, the re-photographing of the film. By means of an optical printer, he developed a way to have light reflected from the 3-dimensional surface of the paint, while at the same time still illuminating it from the backside (as it is done traditionally). Although animation techniques usually are tedious work, Riccardo already tried to achieve some immediacy while printing film to film. This urge for directness, and a need for improvisation and contact with people have possibly let to his more recent body of work: “Shooqui”. The whole series of videos, which involves throwing peas or clothes, is the opposite of camera-less film. The artist holds the camera, aiming and tracking the prospective trajectory of the object being thrown by his other hand. The body connection between holding and throwing leads to a compulsive and circular movement of the camera when throwing larger objects. “It is almost like the recoil action of a gun upon firing.”

Throwing peas, that kind of gentle, silly and innocent action, however also reveals aggressiveness, first in the action itself, and second on the surface of image composition. There seems to be a certain disregard of the camera image. The very small peas do not make much of an image, the trajectory is almost invisible, and the camera has the viewer stare at the targets: windows, walls, cardboard boxes, fire hydrants etc. On the other hand, the filming provokes immediate reactions when done in public. People question the filmmaker, and the given answer that the artist would “record the sound of peas” appears to be less reasonable to the live spectator than the supposition it were some kink, some strange fetish of the artist (“Kinky”).

Although thriving for immediacy, Riccardo Iacono has not used VJ'ing software to make his abstract videos. The images are digitally generated and often confronted frame-by-frame, which in “Play” even creates some complementary colour effects and spatial effects on the retina of the viewer. This interest in visual effects, is explored further in his video “Universe Energies Sustain Us”, a work that was first presented as a multi-channel installation in an exhibition, which included his performance tapes and animations “Play”, “Island”, “Enter”, “Walk”, “Cold Tape”, “Myeyeye” and “Letters”. In the exhibition, the image from one of the monitors was only visible as reflection on the surface of water in a spoon. Iacono re-photographed the show. He shot those spoon mirror images and other reflecting or dusty surfaces. He took up the flow of rerecording and collage, and then composed a new video, creating new layers and relations between the different images.

“I like the destructive power of fire”, a friend stated to Riccardo. It became the source for the title of the show in Berlin. Riccardo's “fire” might be his anarchistic disposition to destroy static concepts. However, he does not avoid the pains, the exhaustive efforts it takes to make art from “happiness”. In his most recent project “Elephant”, he used the opportunity of his Animate Projects artist residency at London College of Communication, to edit the convulsive footage of throwing wet clothes he purchased at the market at Elephant and Castle, the very place he was shooting. The market is at a mayor junction in the South of London, and an authentic but run-down 60's environment. The camera movements, the trajectory of the objects, the video pirate style of maintaining the adhesiveness of sound and image in video, and the resulting chopped sound have been painstakingly edited to a new form of spatial depth and time. The video brings together social interventions in real space and an uncommon but very calculated score of colour, space and sounds. Oh, by the way, you should look out for traces of three elephants appearing in the film!
(Curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr)

Programme
01 From Memory (1994-2003 16mm, colour silent 15.00)
02 Open (1994/2003 16mm optical sound 2.30)
03 Fuzzy Lover (2003 16mm B/W silent 2.10)
04 Pea Video (2006 DV colour Stereo 2.00)
05 More Light (2004 DV colour Stereo 4.55)
06 Recess (2007 DV colour stereo 1:00)
07 P-Sample 1 (2006 DV colour Stereo 2:45)
08 Play (2001 DV colour stereo 3:50)
09 The Electric Garden (2004 DV colour Stereo 5.55)
10 Radiator (1994 DV colour stereo 4:15)
11 Roadside Mix (2006 DV Colour stereo 1:31)
12 Cold Tape (2000 DV colour stereo 1.11)
13 Kinky (2006 DV Colour stereo 1:45)
14 Walk (2001 DV Colour stereo 3:30)
15 A Lecture In Throwing A Pea (2006 DV colour Stereo 1.00)
16 Universe Energies Sustain Us (2002 DV colour Stereo 14.00)
17 Elephant (2007 DV colour Stereo 7:30)

Artist Links:
http://www.riccardoiacono.co.uk
http://www.axisweb.org/openfrequency/riccardoiacono
http://www.riccardoiacono.co.uk/exhibitions/DL_berlin230910.html

Press Links:
http://www.directorslounge.net
http://www.z-bar.de