OPEN EYES – α/ω dream
«We know that underneath the revealed image there is another one more faithful to reality, and underneath this other one another, and again under this last one, until the true image of that reality, absolute, mysterious that no one will ever see, or perhaps until the breakdown of any image, of any reality.»
Michelangelo Antonioni
Open-eyes – #dream α/ω is a research project that combines cinema and performing art: a participatory, site-human-specific cinepoietic action that involves the community of inhabitants of a specific nature or urban area, or of a broader territory, in the elaboration of a live streaming cinema performance, of long duration, and shares the meaning-making process with the public.
Open Eyes explores the possibility of turning sight into a poetic aptitude in order to gain lives for life.
The suspended time of surprise is what we seek, wonder at every step. Slowing everything down, dilating the pupils to the extreme consequences. To be dazzled by a breathtakingly beautiful landscape. Following familiar directions only to suddenly change gear. Finding oneself on the trail of a stranger. Crossing into another reality. Exercising the power of the gaze.
The creation process consists of an exploration and research residency; an artistic residency to elaborate and compose the collected material; an artistic residency to formalise and present the live performance; and the post-production of a short film resulting from the shooting.
The final performance consists of episodes, arranged over the course of a day, inserted into the usual flow of life in a given place. Everyday space becomes a natural film set, where the real and fictional dimensions are combined.
The single episodes are presented as short walking tours that the audience follows at a pace governed by the sequence shot live and streamed.
The filming takes place in a defined area, outdoors, and in some interiors where possible.
Walking audiences follow the development of the film live and at the same time enjoy its cinematic performance on the screens of their mobile devices, thanks to streaming.
The structure of the performance is specific and exclusive to each location involved in the project stage.
The relationship between the individual and the landscape, be it natural, urban or human, determines the visual theme of each #dream. The local stories and personal memories of the inhabitants feed the writing of a site-specific script, to be implemented with the community. Human and landscape architecture merge into a discontinuous composition, inspired by the formal innovation introduced into cinema by Michelangelo Antonioni, whose poetics inspired the project.
The narrative structure develops according to that “interior neo-realism” attributed by French critics to Antonioni’s early works. It is not a sequence of events, but a gaze that lingers on silences and absence, on the personal consequences and social effects of a weave of existences. The plot emerges as a symptom of evoked events, placed in an indefinite time, inspired by events that really happened in the community and linked to the historical memory of the place, but decontextualised and re-elaborated in a fictional subject. The particular and the universal combine in the alternation of depth of field and subjective, in a one-take sequence, with open eyes.