Alessandro Amaducci
Italian videomaker
Interview; 10 question
1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background.
I was graduated in Torino, Italy, with a thesis about Videoart, in particular about the works of Zbigniew Rybczynski. Then I became a cartoonist, a photographer, a musician, a performer, (always in underground and experimental fields). I’m a self-taught person, I like to play. Then I discovered the video, and I also began to teach video technology, and to publish some books about it. Now I teach “Aesthetics of Video†in University of Torino, Italy.
2. When, how and why started you filming?
I’m an ex-cinephile. When I was a child I wanted to make movies, but I was bored by the large part of movies I saw in cinemas. Then one day I saw a retrospective of Videoart in Turin, and I was thrilled by the vision of “The Art of Memory†of Woody Vasulka. I discovered, as a student, Avant-garde Cinema and I was a fan of music videos. Then I attended some courses of video shooting and editing, and I made the editor of documentaries about Second World War in a Film Archive in Turin. I never used film, I started with electronic equipment, then I learned to use non linear editing systems, postproduction and 3D softwares by myself. I also realize the music of my videos.
3. What kind of subjects have your films?
I believe in symbols, and I believe that an image has a meaning, but I don’t believe in narration made with spoken words. So I use the figure of the body as a sort of archetypical place in which images have the role to bring the viewer in a world of symbolic images. My last videos have a sort of unique subject: the inner self of digital technologies. If the computers are able to build their own language, and so they’re able to build worlds, are they able to have a vision of the world? Do computers dream? What happens when our imagery intersects with the imagery created by the computers, for example in the Web world? Why some archetypical images (like the figure of the body) are so important now, even if the digital age is the age of the distance from the body? And more: if the digital culture suggests the death of the idea of the limit, what happens to the concept of Death? These are, of course, the suggestions from which I start. My videos have no answer, they create visual suggestions around these themes.
4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?
Sometimes I work with precise storyboards, sometimes I improvise with the dancer-performer. The result often depends by the relationship between me and the performer. I make also the music of my videos, so I try to develop the themes working on the connection between images and music. I also work on creating (or re-creating) some figures that belong to an archetypical visual world, sometimes taken from the History of Art, sometimes from the clichés of Internet. Those figures become the “characters†(played by real performers) who have the task to manage the themes of the video. I like to combine different technologies, so I like to put together live footage with postproducted images, 2D an 3D images, photographies, and so on. I like the idea of collage, and I prefer to show the technology, and not to hide it. So I prefer to obtain, by a stylistic point of view, an antirealistic, or surrealistic imagery; I’m not interested in photorealism, or realism.
5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.
Sony videocameras, Nikon photocameras, and a lot of softwares (and computers) for editing, postproduction, computer graphics, and music.
6. The field of “art and moving images†(one may call it videoart or also differently) is is manifesting itself as an important position in contemporary art. Tell me more about your personal position and how you see the future of this field ( your personal future and the future of “art and moving imagesâ€)
I make videos, multimedia shows, video-scenographies for theatre and mainly dance performances, but I don’t make so much videoinstallations. So I don’t frequent so much art galleries or exhibitions. I don’t produce objects, I’m not a fan of design and I’m not so interested in interactive technologies. I’m interested in moving images: so, I distribute my works mainly in festivals, televisions, and of course in the web. Sometimes happens that my videos are presented in galleries as “mono-channel†videoinstallations. Lately I’m making digital photos that are present in some exhibitions. I think that the future will be the word “Osmosisâ€. Cinema, television, videoart, the web, but also music and all the performing arts, and all the “art†of moving images will become a set of connected worlds, so the art field will have to be ready to accept a lot of different ways of thinking (and exhibiting) the “work of artâ€.
7. How do you finance your films?
I finance my videos mainly by myself.
8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team?
if you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?
I work in strict relationship with the performers I use for the video, and with a person who works with computer graphics. I prefer to work with a very small group of people, or alone.
9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?
Alain Escalle, Rosto AD, David Anderson, Philippe Decouflé, Zbigniew Rybczynski, Woody Vasulka, La La La Human Steps, Joel-Peter Witkin, and many others.
10. What are your plans or dreams as a film/video maker?
To go on making what I like, without any restrictions.
Can works of yours viewed online besides on CologneOFF or VideoChannel? Where?
Mainly wy website:
www.alessandroamaducci.net