Oblò
Oblo’-Porthole
This artwork could be subtitled as follows:
A summer by the sea, in other words: nothing new under the sun but underwater the man dies..and keeps on watching
What this installation suggests is a gaze in between, in between life and death, above and under, inside and outside the seawaters. The man who stays on the surface is unaware of the dangers hiding underwater (represented by the shark) – or maybe is a false danger. The sun shines until sunrise, but when the darkness falls who knows if everything will be as we left it.
Equally, on the last two portholes there are a super8 of a naturist group on a beach (1971) -still nothing new under the sun- and some lost shoes underwater…a clandestine shipwreck or a cruise ship, or the shoes simply got lost in the sea. The porthole is an opening, a circular hole of moderate size, created on a wooden surface padded by a glass plate shored up on a framework. Differently from a real window, the porthole is used when it is necessary to look outside without being exposed to hidden environmental dangers, which can be easily found in certain contexts. The videos will flow in loop and since their duration is different the portholes won’t ever be black all together.
The subjects of the videos are six:
Bathers: shot on different Italian beaches, it shows us cheerful summer vacationers.
Sharks: the fish which symbolizes fear in the sea, it moves it fins harmless but at the same time threatening. Eye: the vision organ, represented submerged, it cross-refers to the sense of sight, which changes underwater.
Sunset: a sunset seen from the sea –from inside the water- originates a sense of fear mixed to darkness.
Super8: the sea as lived by a group of naturists from the Seventies, found in the images huddle.
Shoes: shoes in the water represent dismay, loss and restitution.
This artwork could be subtitled as follows:
A summer by the sea, in other words: nothing new under the sun but underwater the man dies..and keeps on watching
What this installation suggests is a gaze in between, in between life and death, above and under, inside and outside the seawaters. The man who stays on the surface is unaware of the dangers hiding underwater (represented by the shark) – or maybe is a false danger. The sun shines until sunrise, but when the darkness falls who knows if everything will be as we left it.
Equally, on the last two portholes there are a super8 of a naturist group on a beach (1971) -still nothing new under the sun- and some lost shoes underwater…a clandestine shipwreck or a cruise ship, or the shoes simply got lost in the sea. The porthole is an opening, a circular hole of moderate size, created on a wooden surface padded by a glass plate shored up on a framework. Differently from a real window, the porthole is used when it is necessary to look outside without being exposed to hidden environmental dangers, which can be easily found in certain contexts. The videos will flow in loop and since their duration is different the portholes won’t ever be black all together.
The subjects of the videos are six:
Bathers: shot on different Italian beaches, it shows us cheerful summer vacationers.
Sharks: the fish which symbolizes fear in the sea, it moves it fins harmless but at the same time threatening. Eye: the vision organ, represented submerged, it cross-refers to the sense of sight, which changes underwater.
Sunset: a sunset seen from the sea –from inside the water- originates a sense of fear mixed to darkness.
Super8: the sea as lived by a group of naturists from the Seventies, found in the images huddle.
Shoes: shoes in the water represent dismay, loss and restitution.
Comments 0
Say something