ORTICOLARIO 2024 "TERRAE" INSTALLAZIONE "RINASCIMENTO"

Villa Erba, Como Lake, October 3_6 2024

Photo Ferdinando Sacco ©

The idea for the installation stems from the need to raise awareness of major environmental changes through
current events: social media.
Often browsing social media (in this case Instagram) we come across footage of extreme weather events,
reported almost in real time. Some profiles actually specialize in chronicling this suffering of the earth.
As users of social media we take on these clips in “pills,” one at a time and sweetened by the previous reel
and the next one that speak to us and tell us about a wide variety of elements, from a recipe, to a comedian's
joke, to a commentary on a news event, pulling our attention immediately away from the image we have just
seen and not metabolized, almost as if it were a movie clip far from reality.
The work involves the installation of 13 screens arranged vertically, with the idea of symbolically
reproducing the display of our smartphones. The sequence takes place on both sides of the observer, who
upon entering the ancient villa should feel almost “embraced” by the images. Twelve screens will feature
images with extreme weather events in sequence: different images on each screen (landslides, avalanches,
mudslides, out-of-control river floods) turned to black and white and mediated by Fabrizio Musa's stylistic
signature, which presents them to the viewer softened by the deprivation of color and shades of gray.
He distances them from the chronicle and brings them to the heart. At the same time, thanks to a
multisensory immersion given by all the original audio channels of the individual videos broadcast
simultaneously in the hall, the suffering of the earth is presented in all its drama.
The videos with these images will run for about 2 minutes perfectly synchronized capturing the hearts and
minds of visitors (of all ages) who will find themselves in front of, all at once, dozens of videos recounting
the effect that major environmental changes are inflicting on our earth. For once they will not be single,
fleeting images, enjoyed for only a few seconds, but will somehow be led to observe them, simultaneously
and for a longer time than one is normally accustomed to on social media.
A message appears in the center that brings back to social “put your like and keep scrolling...”
A call not to look lightly at those images as if they were just any other messages or videos that come to us
daily on social media to which we almost automatically put our “like” but to consider and think more about
the historical moment in which we live, to observe carefully what is happening sometimes very close to us.
After two minutes everything stops. All screens freeze at the same time switching to black screen for a few
seconds and then sending a message of hope.... OF RENAISSANCE.
From the first screens close to the viewer, with a visual progression leading toward the bottom, one by one
videos with very brightly colored flowers (in contrast to the black and white of the previous videos) begin to
light up against a black background with timelapse videos that in a few seconds show the flower at its most
beautiful moment, when it opens and shows all its colors and beauty. In a sequence of colors and poetry the
hall will be filled with hope. At this time very soothing classical music synchronized with the videos will be
played in the hall.
The earth will continue to live. Flowers will also bloom tomorrow....
Finally, a shot of Lake Como, in a close-up of the light waves that almost caress us, filmed just behind Villa
Erba, again veering in the initial black and white, brings us back to tranquility, to the elements that show us
nature's ability, with our collaboration, to spread serenity, relaxation.
The gentle lapping of the water of our lake will accompany these images toward the end of the installation,
accompanying the viewer into the opposite state of mind from which he had been brought almost with
“brutality” at the beginning of the experience.
Nature shows us that with true awareness in our behaviors we can live peacefully together and fully enjoy it
and the beauty it can give us every day.
It is up to us to allow future generations to live and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us by taking CARE of it.
fabriziomusa.