RC file & BAU
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Available for free viewing on Saturday 8 October on the occasion of Contemporary Day, promoted by AMACI – Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums – to tell the story of the reborn vitality of contemporary art in our country, after the restrictions due to two years of pandemic.
THE SAME INSTANT. SYNCHRONY DESIRED BY LOVERS AND THE DYING. THE SAME INSTANT TO LOOK AT YOURSELF ONE LAST TIME AND THEN SEE NO MORE, SEE NO MORE’ THE OTHER WHO DIES. MA COM’E’ THE TIME. UPBEAT OR UPBREAK?
In Phile's video & Bau_RC_08, the eighth of the nine paragraphs of Radical Change, through the chromatic contrast of black and white a visual opposition between inside and outside is described, between the transience and fragility of lives that have reached an advanced age and open spaces, between the branches of a wisteria which symbolize the final union of the two lovers. Zeus and Hermes wandered around Phrygia in human form and were rejected by everyone, except from the elder Philemon and his wife. Zeus unleashed his wrath against the Phrygians but spared the two spouses, transforming their humble home into a luxurious temple and offering to fulfill any of their wishes.
When Phile and Bau were close to death, Zeus transformed them into an oak and a linden joined at the trunk. This wonderful tree, which stood in front of the temple, he was venerated for years by the faithful. From the images of the two elderly people, intent on reading, with a difficulty filled with tense tenderness, from the passages taken from Ovid's most famous text we derive the elevation of everyday discomfort to a mythical trait, written in the tradition of the Gods who recognize the hospitality of the two old men by fulfilling their request to be priests of the temple of Zeus and to die together, bound forever by the love that had kept them together, as spouses, for a lifetime.
It's dying together at the same time, the slippage into a dimension that is no longer human, making an earthly love eternity and infinity, a reflection on the time of life and death, on the definitive moment of the understanding between the two no longer young lovers. Lenz Refractions, with an intense sense of place, to be lived artistically and humanly, returns outside for the artistic reflection on Phile's Ovidian episode & Woof thanks to the precious collaboration of Paolo Pediri, responsible for the rehabilitation projects of the multifunctional center P. Corsini of Pellegrino Parmense and with the presence in video of some patients of the center: George Urri, Drunk Tedaldi, Rosa Refolli and Liliana Bertè, sensitive actress who has already taken part in many laboratory experiences of the Parma research company. “In search of time - underlines the author of the video and artistic director of the event Francesco Pititto – of the common moment – down or upbeat? – the myth of the two hospitable and generous old men who are rewarded by the gods with the impossibility of seeing each other's death, through the slow metamorphosis into a plant of each at the same time. What more real place than a home for the elderly where waiting becomes a common search for that moment to live, or die, Together. The wife with her husband, brother with brother, friend with friend. Already Goethe, in Faust, reflects his body and soul in the two old men now guardians of their house transformed into a temple and, in the plant transubstantiation of their mortal blood.
Then the question – down or upbeat? – it becomes essential to find that pulsating rhythm that accompanies both together at the end, neither before nor after, so that “who loved the gods, can become a god himself”. That moment of understanding is worth as much as the life of both because whoever does not see the loved one die becomes, dying, himself loved forever. Then, together in the intertwining of the branches of the powerful wisteria, they unite again their lifeblood which flows quickly towards the leaves in the sky”.
Phil & BAU
from The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidius Naso
creation || Maria Federica Masters | Francesco Pititto
translation | playwriting | imagoturgy || Francesco Pititto
installation | wrappers | plastic elements || Maria Federica Masters
musica || Andrew Azzali
sound direction || Maria Federica Masters
performer || George Urri | Drunk Tedaldi | Rosa Refoli | Liliana Berte
Project care | Lisa Gilardino
light design || Gianluca Bergamini | Andrea Morarelli
