ECUAD AWARD WINNER PAOLO PENNUTI
I usually live abroad from LEVEL 5 on Vimeo.
Pennuti, whose education background is in Philosophy and in Visual Arts, works primarily with video, sound and photography. Pennuti "combines visual and audio fragments, recorded in a documentary style, shifting their meaning into a new dimension suspended between fiction and reality. His works are the result of physical and theoretical journeys that explore interstitial spaces where apparently nothing is happening but residues of experiences are deposited."1
You may remember his work with Elisa Ferrari from last year's BFA show: in 32 Notes on T, aerial footage shot in an attempt to locate a missing hiker ('T') is rolled out in a captivatingly beautiful, but downright unsettling, 3-channel video, over which 32 excerpts from 'T's journal are narrated.
 |
| Paolo Pennuti, I Usually Live Abroad (video still), 2013 |
Pennuti's subsequent work -- the rapturous I Usually Live Abroad -- was created for his MAA thesis project. About the work, Pennuti writes: "A single channel long sequence shot plays with subtitles that contain personal memories, a fake translation in the voice off, and the lyrics of a karaoke pop song. The video is about the current economic crisis and it expresses a certain way of being Italian but nothing is clearly described and everything about the economic crisis is evoked by a German voice whose meaning is incongruent with the English subtitles. This video uses subtitles with a voice off that, rather than translating the text, plays an ironic game with the meaning of the subtitles. The long sequence shot of New Years fireworks in Naples evokes an image of happiness and celebration that hides the conflicts in Italy and in the European community."
I Usually Live Abroad was selected for this distinction by a jury consisting of creative director Kiky Kambylis, curator and educator Jesse Birch, and contemporary artist Laiwan.
Comments
Post a Comment