The Performance Art of Francesca Fini
About This Exhibition:
The VASA Project is presenting the video performance work of Francesca Fini, an Italian based artist. The exhibition is accompanied with what VASA has termed a “Digital Catalog”. The catalog contains references to publish material on Fini's art work, a video conversation, biographic information, an artist statement, and selected works. After a period of time the complete exhibition will be moved to the VASA Exhibition Archive for future reference and viewing. VASA thanks Francesca for her assistance in creating this exhibition.
To understand the video performance work of Francesca Fini it must be contextualized within an historical framework of performance, art, technological development (devices and systems), and shifting paradigms emerging from modernism and postmodernism.
In Steve Dixon's
comprehensive book
entitled: “Digital
Performance: A history
of new media in
theater, dance,
performance art,
and installation”
(MIT Press, 2007)
the author sets
the stage when he
says “During the
last decade of the
twentieth century,
computer technologies
played a dynamic
and increasingly
important role in
live theater, dance,
and performance;
and new dramatic
forms of performance
genres emerged in
interactive installations
and on the internet.”
(p.1) The development
and incorporation
of various digital
systems and conceptual
frameworks have
provided a playing
field for contemporary
artist. (I refer
to digital systems
over devices because
technology is a
system of relationships
between hardware,
software, concepts,
and historical contexts.)
Reaching back in
to the late 1960s
with the development
of personal portable
video technologies
(SONY video PortaPak)
to today's global
interactive digital
networks, linking
people, institutions,
and traditions together,
artist and their
audience have the
platforms for developing
new (built upon
the old) forms of
expression and experiences.
Virtuality,
person-processor
interface, webcams,
virtual meetings,
social networks,
open-source applications,
virtual worlds,
and artificial intelligence
(AI) systems, and
the body, (see Biological
Canvas and Clinic,
both VASA exhibitions
curated by Patrick
Millard) have been
drawn upon by artist
to inquire into
issues of identity,
time and space,
movement, conflict
and resolution,
and the human/machine
interface. These
are not new ideas
emerging out of
the mid-twentieth
century, they are
themes and inquires
that rooted in the
time of story tellers
and acoustic cultures.
The Internet, smart
phones and most
recently the emergence
of tablets, as the
beneficiaries of
this history, have
created stages for
everyday communications
and social performances.
Artist have engaged
and challenged this
context in the development
of expression: aesthetic,
social, and political.
Again, referring to Steven Dixon in his reference to Stephen Wilson suggestion that “artist are forced to choose between three theoretical stances … (1) continue a modernist practice of art linked with adjustments for the contemporary era; (2) develop a unique postmodernist art built around deconstruction at its core; (3) develop a practice focused on elaborating the possibilities of new technologies.” (p 7)
It is within this context that we place Francesca Fini's work. Fini as a performance artist knows her history, has developed not only digital production skills but frameworks for conceptualization that becomes possible as a result (a moving of her horizon line), and her own pushing of the limits of aesthetic expression.
Through the use
of sound and light
sensors, video projections,
dancers/props, and
sound modulators
Fini creates her
performance for
a live audience.
In its post-performance
mode Fini combines
the framing of multiple
video cameras creating
a new experience,
a new reading, that
lives beyond the
on-site performances.
In doing so she
challenges the video
viewer to construct
and later deconstruct
the layered meaning
of her performance.
The emblematic construction
of Fini's work extends
beyond the frame
to engage the non-passive
and committed viewer
in her visual, auditory,
and conceptual constructions.
The performance,
a linear construct,
builds and reinforces
in paradigmatic
ways the aesthetic
and conceptual realizations
presented to us
by Fini's work.
The viewer, as participant
in this process
builds their own
constructs within
their own frame
of reference.
Dixon, Steve (2007) Digital performance: A history of new media in theater, dance, performance art, and installation. Mit Press.
Copyright Roberto Muffoletto 2011