Frownland II - events in dense fog (Craddock, Niblock, Pugno, Quaranta)

After its first edition in 2011, when Thomas Köner, Phill Niblock, Carlos Casas and Paolo Piscitelli screened their videos, this year, “Frownland” offers once again an outlook on the different aspects involved in the study of the landscape. This time, as in 2011, each author depicts a very personal case. However, whilst the works showcased back then focused on the connection – both spatial and temporal – that is established between an individual and a place (as was the case in Thomas Köner’s and Paolo Piscitelli’s works), and other installations dealt with the influence of landscape on a social group (Phill Niblock and Carlos Casas), “Frownland II” will display videos which have captured – for the most part, in a far-from-unpremeditated fashion – the unexpected and arresting appearance of the ‘daemon’ (and, sometimes, its anticipation). The ‘daemon’ is a phenomenon able to elicit in the individual present at a certain time, in the presence of a particular landscape (and, subsequently, in whoever will watch the video), an ecstatic reaction.
Alessandro Quaranta will be ushering in the exposition on Wednesday 5th March 2014, starting from 6.30 pm, with the premiere of The Changing of the Guard, shot in the summer  of 2011, in a mountainous region in the South-East of France, and subsequently re-edited with a different auctorial approach, after many consecutive afterthoughts, at the end of 2013.
This will be followed, on the same night, by the screening of the exquisite THIR (Ten Hundred Inch Radii), of the Environments series, a 1972 video by Phill Niblock, which will be shown in its abridged version, which somehow accentuates the intimist nature of the work. THIR was shot on 16 mm film, in a delimited area (as the title suggests, within a 1000 inch radius) on the Adirondack Mountains, in the northern region of the State of New York.
On Thursday 13th March, at 6.30 pm again, the second phase of the exhibition will take place: Laura Pugno, known to most people for her pictorial research, has been experimenting for around a year with the medium of video, and will be showcasing some recent pieces of hers. Each one of her videos was shot in a very simple fashion, especially as far as Meccanismi di difesa (defence mechanisms) is concerned: it is made up of a single, static shot lasting about 4' On the other hand, Pugno did some post-production on the shorter Livello di soglia (threshold level), especially on the sound. Obolo (Offering), at its first showing, is the only video made up of two different shots, although it was shot, as the rest, in one single place, for several minutes.
Maysey Craddock, an American artist who is showcasing her work in Italy for the first time, is the author of three short videos, Wheel, boat dock slip, shot in 2010, and Just Breathe, shot in 2008, which will follow Pugno’s work, on the same night. These videos are also simply shot, and stand out for their compositional clarity; the first one consists in a peculiar long take, which, at first, may seem edited in post-production (and to a small degree, it actually is); the other two are static shots, where the action is carried out by the elements of water and air, respectively. 

*: Frownland is the title of the opening piece on the first side of the double album by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band “Trout Mask Replica”, released in 1969; Events in Dense Fog is the title of a piece by Brian Eno, from his album “Music for Films”, released in 1978.

Laura Pugno, Meccanismi di difesa
Laura Pugno, Livello di soglia
Laura Pugno, Obolo
Alessandro Quaranta, The Changing of the Guard