Lo schermo dell’Arte – Festival of Cinema and Contemporary Art dedicates the FOCUS section of its 14th edition to Austrian artist Oliver Laric, one of the most internationally renowned auteurs working with moving images, whose works, rarely presented in Italy, explore the production and consumption of images in the Internet age through animation and 3D graphics.
Laric was one of the first artists to manipulate YouTube content, exploiting the platform’s potential and using it not only as an archive for extrapolating images, but also as a place where his works could be exhibited and disseminated for free, generating a short circuit between the art world and popular culture.
His production, from 2006 to the Italian premiere of his latest video Untitled (2021), will be presented at Cinema La Compagnia on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 November.
The artist will also be present in the theatre on Friday 12 November at 3:45pm, in conversation with art historian and curator Valentina Tanni, author of Memestetica. Il settembre eterno dell’arte (Memaesthetic. The Eternal September of Art, Nero, 2020), which focuses on the relationship between art and technology, with particular attention to web cultures.
Programme
THURSDAY 11 NOVEMBER – 9pm
Versions, 2012 , 6’ 17’’
The works that make up the Versions series are created through a montage of images taken from films, Disney cartoons, YouTube videos, memes and animations created by the artist accompanied by a female voiceover of an actress who does not appear onscreen and who interprets a robotic text.
Untitled, 2014/15, sound, 5’ 55’’
Untitled brings together footage from over 100 years of film and animated videos that immerse the viewer in different cultures and time periods. Laric extrapolates scenes in which people, objects and animals are transformed: old people who become children, robots that turn into cars and snakes that become belly dancers.
5, 2013, 10’
At a small table, the avatars of five characters, created using CGI, take turns to sit in front of each other as if in a meeting in the dark and engage in brief conversations, their dialogues opening up an area of negotiation of meaning and representation.
50×50, 2007, sound, 2’6’’
Fifty YouTube users reinterpret a famous hit by the American rapper 50 Cent by dancing and singing in lip-sync.
FRIDAY 12 NOVEMBER – 3:45pm
Festival Talk: Oliver Laric in conversation with Valentina Tanni
Oliver Laric will be in conversation with curator and art historian Valentina Tanni, author of Memestetica. Il settembre eterno dell’arte (Memaesthetic. The Eternal September of Art, Nero, 2020), which focuses on the relationship between art and technology, with particular attention to web cultures.
6:50pm
Air Condition, 2006, sound, 2’
This is one of Laric’s earliest video experiments, a hypnotic dance consisting of movements that form the body of a snake which eludes us, accompanied by Indian-inspired music.
Versions, 2010, 9’
The works that make up the Versions series are created through a montage of images taken from films, Disney cartoons, YouTube videos, memes and animations created by the artist accompanied by a female voiceover of an actress who does not appear onscreen and who interprets a robotic text.
Betweenness, 2018, sound, 4’35’’
In this work Laric continues his research into transmutation and the hybrid using clips from a wide range of sources. The subjects are digitally outlined by the same vectorised line that continuously moves between sequences. The line that returns in the various permutations of the subject suggests an unlimited number of possibilities for unique forms.
Untitled, 2021, sound, 4’
In his latest video, Laric returns to the subject of metamorphosis by presenting visualisations of imperceptible changes in organic matter and living organisms. The soundscape accompanying the video was specially created by the Finnish musician and producer Ville Haimala.
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787 cliparts, 2006, sound, 1’5”
787 clipart illustrations are mounted in a continuous flow to give the idea of perpetual motion which provides a taxonomy of human culture.
Lo schermo dell’Arte, Florence, November 10 – 14 2021
Images: (cover 1) Oliver Laric, «Untitled», 2014 – 15, still from video, Courtesy of the Artist (2) Oliver Laric, «Versions», 2012, still from video (3) Oliver Laric, «Untitled», 2014 – 15, still from video, Courtesy of the Artist (4) Oliver Laric, «50×50», 2007, still from video, Courtesy of the Artist (4) Oliver Laric, «Versions», 2010, still from video, Courtesy of the Artist (5) Oliver Laric, « Betweenness», 2018, still from video, Courtesy of the Artist (6) Oliver Laric, «Untitled», 2021, still from video, Courtesy of the Artist (7) Oliver Laric, «Cliparts», 2006, still from video, Courtesy of the Artist
