KITE
Video-audio performance with Davide Tomat and G.u.p. Alcaro
October 25, 2018
The artistic duo MASBEDO are back in Palermo for their third and final performance specially devised for Manifesta 12. The video-audio performance entitled KITE, in partnership with Davide Tomat and G.u.p. Alcaro, will be staged on Thursday, October 25 at Teatro Garibaldi in Palermo.
Following their installation at Archivio di Stato in Palermo entitled Protocol 90/6, inspired by the life and professional career of the film director Vittorio De Seta, and a video-performance called Terra di Nessuno based on a film directed by Mario Baffico in 1939, the artistic duo MASBEDO have written a new chapter in the project entitled Videomobile, an elaborate multi-channel video installation designed for Manifesta 12 portraying the city of Palermo and its socio-cultural environment based on a rereading of the history of film. The video-audio performance KITE—scheduled to be shown at Teatro Garibaldi in Palermo on Thursday, October 25 at 9pm—is actually the third part of a trilogy of performances based on the project exhibited in Palazzo Costantino through to 4th November.
KITE is freely adapted from a subject for a film written by Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra entitled L’Aquilone (Kite) that was devised in the 1980s but never actually made. MASBEDO bought the exclusive rights to turn it into an artist’s video or film.
The protagonist of the first chapter of the script is a tremendous storm that suddenly breaks out in some unspecified almost metaphysical place, violently overwhelming a group of children who, at that moment, happen to be playing with brightly coloured kites.
In the setting of Teatro Garibaldi, Manifesta’s head quarter, MASBEDO have recreated the feeling of the storm in several dimensions, thanks to interaction between atmospheric music specially composed by Davide Tomat and GUP Alcaro (musicians from Turin and the founding members of SuperBudda), some gripping video footage shot by the artists near Mount Etna, and physical perception rendered through the energy of two extremely large fans designed for the film industry placed on stage as if they were sculptures that move in unison with the sounds and images. MASBEDO’s video-audio performance turns the storm into a modern-day metaphor, getting the audience involved in a dreamlike story of great physical and emotional impact.
The performance trilogy that concludes with KITE and Videomobile consist of works commissioned by Manifesta 12 for Il Giardino Planetario. Coltivare la Coesistenza and produced by Beatrice Bulgari for In Between Art Film.
MASBEDO is a team of two artists, Nicolò Massazza (1973) and Iacopo Bedogni (1970). They live in Milan and have been working together since 1999, mainly focusing on video art and installations. Their artistry is expressed through the language of video and various other forms, such as performance art, theatrical plays, installations, photography and, more recently, film.
In Between Art Film is a film production company set up by Beatrice Bulgari in 2012 that specialises in producing films and documentaries based around interdisciplinarity and interaction between the various contemporary art languages.
Press office In Between Art Film
Lara Facco, T +39 349 2529989, press [at] larafacco.com
