The Performance Art of Francesca Fini: Alone In The Dark #1(2011)
ALONE IN THE DARK
- session 1 (2011)
performance art experiment
by Francesca Fini
website of the project
aloneinthedark10.blogspot.com/
“Alone in the Dark”
is an experiment in
which I undertake
a small personal investigation
into the meaning of
performance art today.
More than any other
form of artistic language,
performance art, in
its fluidity, is called
upon to interpret
contemporary reality.
It is gesture and
action that occur
spontaneously, free
of any representative
or mimetic intention
but are, instead,
rich in a generative
power that is unavoidable
and unpredictable,
and that succeed in
fitting together in
the anthropological
and cultural magma
in which we live.
I asked myself what
meaning Art in general
and Performance Art
in particular has
today, when the news
of the killing of
the world's public
enemy number one,
diffused over the
internet with its
corollary of photographic
fakes and conspiracy
myths, is transformed
into a kind of planetary
performance that is
more significant than
any artistic action
that intends to propose
a reading of contemporary
reality. Much conceptual
Art has been played
it's game in this
border space between
the real and the virtual,
simulating the dynamics
of information/misinformation,
which is a virus that
is spreading, nourished
by the global consumer
rapacity, changing
genetically, and insinuating
itself into minds,
confusing them. It
is a process of depersonalization
and alienation of
the relationship with
others that recounts,
in all its disarming
senselessness, the
Times we live in.
Today more than ever, Art must become "honest" and behave actively in the microcosms, trying to create a direct and authentic exchange with people, a true peer-to-peer relationship. An aesthetic activism that becomes urgency.
“Alone in the Dark” project will take place online by means of situational incursions in social networks, video-chats, web radios and streaming services. The idea is that of interference, of a cultural short-circuit, of emotional hacking. The aim is to capture the attention of a public very different from the traditional one of museums and galleries, of the “come and see” type which, in the best of cases, will try to understand what they are watching, but always in their on-the-spot role of spectator judge, in the protective bubble of their little chair.
"Alone in the dark" session # 1 (the rite)
For the very first session of the project, that I called "the rite", I invited eight artists friends in my laboratory in Rome. My laboratory, built by me and by my partner in a special room of my house, is a sort of perfectly cubic performative black box which contains everything you need to perform and to record your actions. The performers didn't have any idea about the project and they were very surprised when I explained them that I expected them to perform in front of a webcam connected to the most controversial video-chat in the world, Chat-roulette. It all took place on a dreary day in August, as the sun melted the thoughts in the mind and made way for action. In this way, the sequence of performances spontaneously assumed the rhythm of a ritual. Strangely, nor perhaps not, all the performances shared the theme of violence (self-inflicted violence, social violence, violence between the sexes, group violence against the individual).
performers:
Inanna Trillis
Nausicaa Martino
Graziella Salerno
Maurizio Crocco
Nicola Antonelli
Antioche Tambre Tambre
Federico Trimarchi
Francesca Fini
On Chat-roulette,
communication between
users occurs one on
one and is absolutely
casual. You never
choose whom you will
video-chat with; it
is the system that
casually fishes out
your chat partner
from the heap, when
you connect in perfect
anonymity. No one
asks your first and
last name; you do
not have to register;
and you do not need
any nickname.
You enter the chat
and immediately there
appears on your screen
the face of a perfect
stranger. At that
point you can decide
if you want to chat
with that person.
At any time, you can
end the communication
by clicking on the
“next” button and
pass to the next user.
The public of Chat-roulette
is an animal of our
times, frenetic and
voracious, involved
in a furious zapping
involving the pursuit
of meaning, love,
contact, empathy and
sex.
The first performer
comes on stage. A
fifteen-minute timer
imposes an ideal time
for the action, and
offer a way out. The
web-cam is connected
to the network and
there appears on the
screen the first unknown
guest. He does not
know what is awaiting
him. But he comes
to you in his truth,
ready to match his
brain against yours,
without filters, to
pour out his soul,
in some cases to share
his desperate loneliness,
the spark of a confession,
the dizziness of masturbation.
The challenge is to
make him take part
in the performance
and keep him glued
to the screen until
the end.
The project becomes
an investigation into
the meaning of roles
(the performer and
the spectator) and
is based on authentic
interactivity, which
is only possible in
a concrete one-on-on
human exchange. The
performer is acting
only for one spectator,
recuperating the profound
sense of the performance
art that exists in
the immediacy of the
gesture apart from
the presence of the
public. His interlocutor
is there by chance,
without prejudice
or expectations regarding
what he is looking
at. Will he will remain
connected or not.
Will he interact with
you or not. Will he
understand or not.
In more than one instance
the unknown guest
remains hooked and
has used the textual
chat to ask questions.
The other performers
in front of the computer
answered him.
The investigation
concerns the spectator
as well as the performer,
who has confronted
an anomalous situation
with unpredictable
implications, because
the unknown guest
never assumed the
reassuring role of
the spectator, nailed
to his seat and social
conventions.
“Alone in the Dark” is “semiotic guerrilla warfare”, it is a cultural short circuit that confronts the performer with another other person par excellence, the voracious consumer of online emotions who travels towards self-destruction, in the dizziness of an appointment in the dark.