The player may not change his position

The Fun Fair could be considered a wonderful trap for one’s eyes and body. It’s only this, I guess, that’s the raison d’être of its existence, nowadays. The Fair, with all its attractions, lights, sounds and movements, is an anachronistic sanctuary, an enclave where time and space are allowed to expand and contract, mocking every reference. It’s a realm of rotation and vortex, blinking lights and fragments, of darkness, mirrors and flashes.

To paraphrase the title of the work, the spectator may not change his position: first rule, game on. The cinematographic machine, as produced by the video in the sense of a dispositif, is the conditio sine qua non of the pleasure/pain that accompanies the vision. A Ludovico technique made of wrenches and swerves, stroboscopic effects, abandoned into a lumpy and dense darkness. The apparent passivity and the conditioning of the spectator, imply a perceptual hyper activity and extra labour for cones and rods.

Black, white, extra white, ultra black, color – color -color, flash, blur, fade out. End. This might be the best synopsis of the film, perhaps.

The Fun Fair is a reflection of the light of cinema, its topology a “Montage of Attractions”, its magic made out of every kind of transition, special effects and fades to black. The film, of which the first section could be ascribed with full rights to the observational documentary category, soon transforms into an inevitable path for the eye, through the coercive mechanics of entertainment, staged in favour of the bodies of a paying public. With the clause that the ornamental mass, of the jubilant population of the fair, is absent for the entire duration of the optic trip.

The starting point of my work is always “reality” intended as a plurality of phenomena. It’s an observation and an exploration of the “real”, through the audio-visual language. My films focus on objects and spaces, on the relationship that originates amongst them and the one between them and the people. I observe the production processes of goods, in particular, of the manufactured products linked to the representation of human beings (dummies), to the human rituals and to the practices concerning body and games (medical equipment manufacturing, toy safety test, etc.). This observation allows me to come into contact with the things secret to life and hidden energy. Like human beings, things and spaces aren’t neutral or inert entities. Their own history influences not only their form and function, but also their use or misuse. Finding out how things are manufactured, reveals hidden symbolic practices and alchemical worlds that seem to be tied to magic. Differently from what happens within shamanic communities, where they pray to the power of artifacts, the “makers”, and the final users of the product, are often not aware of this.

Through my work, I attempt to leave a trace of the transitory symbolic worlds, linked to production processes. At the same time I’m trying, by shooting, to search for the energetic remnants in the places or buildings dedicated to activities that produce deep emotions. These places absorb the desires of the people going through them. The traces of these emotional transfers can be seen by looking at the wear and tear of the material, at the places during the moments of transition between activity and inactivity, at the incessant effort to regenerate and clean the places. By shooting, also the slow and small changes, the energetic adjustment and the places’ humors can be seen and heard.

Each of my works is a reconstruction of a cinematic ritual. My filmic practice and experience are based on the sole use of field recorded audiovisual material, at a shooting time that adapts itself to the time of the filmed situation, in long and lonely periods in which I try to find a deep and close relationship with places and things. My most recent research claims the use of moving images as an instrument to show the hidden life of things, trying to achieve the cinematic quality that is contained and implied into objects and spaces, leaving traces of the figurative aspect of reality.