Untitled - Distretto Culturale di Valle Camonica

Serena Porrati PORTFOLIO January 2011
My work is a macro investigation of the human dreams that can physically shape the environment.
I am interested in all the forms of non-human life and wild forms that coexist or interact with
the uncontrolled spreading of civilization as hidden phenomenons of our contemporary culture. I am inspired by primitivist philosophy and the nature versus culture dichotomy. While
my films, videos and photographs are based on specific ecological, urban, historical and social interest, they are determined and developed by an element of improvisation and chance.
INDEX
1. SESIETE ABBASTANZA VICINI PER VEDERE, SIETE TROPPO VICINI PER EVITALA
2. SNOW BALLS
3. DINGER REIS 2
4. SUCK ME DRY
5. THE SKY WITHOUT YOU
6. INEXPRESSIBLE ISLAND
7. BABYLON
8. CON TEMPORARY HILLS
9. IL SEGRETO DELLA LORO MISSIONE
10. LIGHT STORY
11. MAN IS INFLUENCING NATURE
12. BEYOND NATURE
13. NON HUMAN PRESENCES
14. ER B
15. WONDERLAND
CV
S E S I E T E A B B A S T A N Z A V I C I N I P E R V E D E R E,
S I E T E T R O P P O V I C I N I P E R E V I TAR LA
2011, lamda print 30x40
SNOW BALLS
2011, book 10x6 cm
I asked twenty friends to write a description of open air places where they engaged in a sexual experience.
Each page contains a story. The book is a collage of fragile memories, a collection of blurred images, environment details that recall a primitive approach to life.
It makes me imagine what animals see when they make love.
SNOW BALLS
2011, book 10x6 cm
SNOW BALLS
2011, book 10x6 cm
SUCKME DRY
2010, S8 on digital, r/t 4’26”
The film is one long night camera car sequence. It was filmed in Lost Hills California around a wide cow
farm. The sequences are looped to highlight the sensation of vastness and artificiality. In Lost Hills, about
75% of the population is engaged in agricultural positions, two-thirds of its workers carpool to work in
pickup trucks or vans.
S U C K M E D R Y still from the video
THE SKY WITHOUT YOU
2010, rayogram 100x150 cm
Adopting the analog and old-fashioned technique of the rayogram, some dog’s hairs have been placed on
the photo-senitive paper. Once developed the outcome resembles a clouded sky.
I N E X P R E S S I B LE I S LAN D
2010, S8 mm film on digital, r/t 10’
The camera moves through the city and reaches the desert. Even though the human figures are almost absent, the scenes are characterized by a constant presence of man-made objects. They all recall the human
idea of nature and the human daily dealing with wild entities; cultural approaches that have economic and
social implications. The film is recorded at slow speed, each scene lasting just a few frames. The resulting piece is an in-camera edited film composed by chaotic flow of flashing images and glimpses. The work
takes its name from the extremely rocky island found in the Antarctic, a place known to be one of the most
isolated and unwelcoming places on earth for humans. The film was shot in Southern California, Arizona,
New Mexico and Milan.
I N E X P R E S S I B L E I S L A N D still from the video
I N E X P R E S S I B L E I S L A N D still from the video
I N E X P R E S S I B L E I S L A N D still from the video
I N E X P R E S S I B L E I S L A N D still from the video
BABYLON
2010 video color, miniDV, r/t 15”
A home based documentary set in the post-industrial/post-agricultural landscape of Milan suburbs. The
rural scenes are mixed to a series of portraits that highlight inhabitants everyday life and their relation with
a changing natural environment. The documentary is set in a wild wood area that will be removed to build
a road.
CON TEMPORARY HILLS
2010, Lambda print 15x18 from a series of 20
Temporary hills rise from the ground as signs of the ongoing human activity of landscape moulding. Small
or wide man-made land forms become the habitats for vegetation and city wilderness. They eventually
become a recurring but not codified element of whatsoever urban landscape.
C O N T E M P O R A R Y H I L L S selection from the series
C O N T E M P O R A R Y H I L L S selection from the series
C O N T E M P O R A R Y H I L L S selection from the series
I L S E G R E T O D E LLA LO R O M I S S I O N E
2009, 16 mm film on digital, r/t 6’46”
Contemporary science doesn’t create anymore pictures to represent or an imagery; the world that it opens
nowadays is ‘beyond” any possible image. In the obsolete didactic film the voice over describing the photosynthesis process is manipulated to create a chaotic non sense. The main technical and specific words
related to the scientific images have been erased while just the sentences related to human dreams and
feeling are audible. The film is now showing the unchanged cultural necessity to pursuit the control upon the
natural environment, its phenomenons and elements.
LIGHT STORY
2008, Installation, variable dimensions
The walls of a room are covered by a series of weeds collected trough the city. Recalling a decorative
floral pattern, the installation brings the “outside forms of life” in a closer relation to humans. The pattern is
determined by the biodiversity of each specific place or territory.
B EYO N D NATU R E
2007, 8 and S8mm films on digital video, r/t 15’30’’
Beyond Nature is an assemblage of sequences and fragments selected from old “found” family movies
filmed from the 1950s through the ’80s, in European, American, and South American locations. The original Super8 and 8mm films have been converted into a digital format and cut and edited into a collage that
re-frames each shot denying the human presence. The resulting piece foregrounds the natural landscape
in which they were originally filmed. The edited images assume the form of a journey which is not simply a
compilation of landscapes, but a representation of the possibilities that reside within human ideas of landscape. The film portrays a passage through the idea of a territory; a place that is real an “documented” but
at the same time virtual, because it exists in the past and in vanishing memories. In this sense, even though
the film is dominated by “nature,” it is totally permeated with human essence. The sound track of Beyond
Nature has been made -in collaboration with the American composer Alan Lechusza- using samples of field
recordings that evoke the places represented in the video. The human voices and noises have not been
deleted, and as a result, the disquieting human absence is emphasized.
B E Y O N D N A T U R E still from the video
B E Y O N D N A T U R E still from the video
NON HUMAN PRESENCES
2007, lambda prints 10x15, from a series of 16
In a series of free-way roadsides details simple forms of wild life with the ability to grow in human build areas
stand out. The repetition of the same background enable us to see them as a deeply animated matter.
E RB
2007 Milan-Los Angeles, digital video, r/t.10’
E rb is an audio-visual project based on different plant species that grow in the urban environment.
The frames and scenes are invaded of flowering plants, commonly known as weeds. These unwanted
organisms, renowned to have the ability and the strength to survive and reproduce in extreme conditions, are spied by the camera from a narrow distance. They have been shot for 1-2 minutes and
then acknowledged by their proper and botanical name. Every single sequence has been edited in alphabetical order. E rb is a small video-catalogue of those forms of flora that can adapt their biological system and behavior to the unnatural elements within the city such as electric light, pollution and
noises. The result of this process can also be read as an unconventional urban biodiversity analysis.
E R B still from the video
W O N D E R LAN D
2007 lambda print 50x70
W O N D E R LAN D
2008 lambda print 50x70
SERENA PORRATI
Born in 1981, Milan, IT
EDUCATION
-2007/2009 Reciprocity student at the University of California San Diego, MFA program.
-2007 Master in “Art and New Technologies” at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan.
-2004 Graduation with honors at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan.
-2004 “Visual, Sound and Comunication Design” workshop c/o Domus Academy of Milan.
-2002 Academic Semester c/o Staatliche Akademie der Bildende Kunste Stuttgart, Germany.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008 “Complicity with the ground”, curated by Amy Adler, MFA building facilities, University of California
UCSD, San Diego.
2002 “La Materia del tempo” curated by Ken Damy, Museo of contemporary photography, Brescia.
MAIN GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010 “Casabianca” curated by Anteo Radovan, Zola Pedrosa, BO.
2009 “La seconda luna”, curated by Carola Bonfili and Denis Isaia e , ex Municipio, Laives, BZ.
2009 “Moving Lines, Art at the boundaries of mobility”, Künstlerkreis Ortenau, Galerie in Artforum,
Offen burg, Germany.
2008 “Video REPORT ITALIA” 2006_07 GC.AC, a cura di Andrea Bruciati,
Galleria d’Arte Contempora nea, Monfalcone, GO.
2008 “Take a deep breath” curated by Francesca Referza, Spoltorensemble 2008,
XXVI edition, Spoltore PE.
2008 “Day Return ticket”, curated by Francesca Referza and Massimo Arioli, Galleria Senzatitolo, Rome.
2007 Exhibition of the first international photography prize MoCA “Arte Laguna”, curated by Igor Zanti,
Brolo Centro D’Arte e Cultura di Mogliano Veneto, TV.
2006 Biennial of Photography “International Exhibition of Photography, new generations”
curated by Ken Damy, Sala Ss. Filippo & Giacomo, Brescia.
2005 “Contesto 01” Installations for a specific place, curated by Massimo Moca e Lorenzo Casali,
Navelli, AQ.
2004 “Salon 1° 2004” 150 students of Brera, Museo della Permanente, Milan, IT.
2004 “Il sacro” collective young artists, curated by Angela Madesani e Andrea dall’Asta,
Galleria S.fedele, Via Hoepli, Milan.
2003 “Platform n.01” from (from the Biennial of) Athens to Venice, Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, Venice.
2003 “Biennial Young people artists of Europe of the Mediterranean”, BJCM, XI Edition, Athens, Greece.
2002 “Officine02” curated by Ken Damy, Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona.
2002 “Premio Tenchio”, spazio ex Ticosa, Como.
2002 “Brend New Talent” URBAN ART c/o Palazzina Liberty, Milan.
2002 “Sommer Austellung 2002” curated by Chris Newman c/o Staatliche Akademie der Bildende Kunste
Stuttgart, Germany.
SCREENINGS
2010 in occasion of Milano Noir e Giald book presentation, c/o La Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan.
“Risvegli” curated by Agenzia x Milan, Parco comunale, Cassolnovo, MI.
2010 “Viaggi in immagini” curated by Francesda di Nardo, ex carcere delle murate, Florence.
2010 “Meeting Place” curated by Carlo Cislaghi Giardini del chiostro di Santa Chiara,Termini Merese. -2009
“Cox noir e giald, dodici variazioni del nero” curated by Agenzia XC.S.O.A.COX18, Milano.
2008 “Clouds of sounds inner park” curated by Andrea Lissoni, Fair_Play film and video award,
Cinema Lux Mascagno, Lugano, Switzeland.
2008 “Day Return Ticket” by Massimo Airoli e Referza Francesca, Galleria Senzatitolo, Rome.
2007 “Filmmaker Doc12” International Film Festival, Paesaggi Umani session, Spazio Oberdan, Milan.
2007 “CINEMI Lunghi, corti, cortissimi, documentari e animazione” curated by Francesco Ballo,
Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan.
2007 “Open Studios”, MFA building facilities, University of California San Diego, San Diego. CA.
PRESS, INTERVIEWS AND PUBLIC ARTICLES
- “Milano. Deep Inside Urban Culture: geografica culturale della città”
curated by Mario Flavio Benini, IED Milan.
- International conference “Spaces of Differences” curated by Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg,
Bicocca University, Milan.
http://www.formazione.unimib.it/Default.asp?idPagine=637&funzione=&lingua=ING
http://landscapingbackward.blogspot.com/
- “2Video” a cura di Francesca Di Nardo www.undo.net/
- “Unleaded arte contemporanea” interview by Francesca Referza www.youdem.tv
- “L’altro lato”, intrview by Claudia Ceroni, Rai RadioDue
- www.lasecondaluna.it
- “In search of the imaginary” by Andrea Lissoni, Checkinarchitecture Free press #1, April 2008
- “Piante disturbate” by Valeria Cerambolini, Tutto Milano, Repubblica, November 2007.
PERSONAL DETAILS
Serena Porrati
Mail: serena.porrati@gmail.com
T:+39.329.67 13 258
www.serenaporrati.com