diversionsparseceng

The first appointment of DIVERSIONS showcase, curated by Parsec, will feature artists Kathryn Attrill, Anabel Garcia – Kurland, Giuseppe Onelia and Alberta Pellacani.

Different forms of visual language will be presented, experimental both in the narratives they develop and in their use of the medium. 

The videos presented combine analogue, digital, real and imaginary, creating fictitious narratives that intertwine with reality and lead to a change in point of view thanks to unusual perspectives. The images are fluid, distorted, seemingly abstract, undergoing variations, editing and reshaping, reflecting on issues such as climate change, the coexistence of digital infrastructure and community, the concept of the uncanny in our everyday lives, and the shift in perception.

Attrill’s sculptural approach to the moving image disassembles and re-assembles fragile film fragments within both digital and analogue practices. Her work is often inspired by natural processes and the relationship between human bodies and objects. Intergenerational collaboration as a means of alleviating job loss is addressed in Hiding Places, in which the artist’s celluloid practice intersects with her grandfather’s shrimping business on the Isle of Wight, now lost due to environmental change. The vocal testimonies are combined with shades of blue treated with peppermint in a poignant act of healing, which Attrill achieved by developing the film used (50ft Super 8) with peppermint.

The work of Anabel Garcia – Kurland focuses on the dialogue between physical and digital architectures. Her research incorporates the use of technology and multidisciplinary architectures using 3D spaces, VR, and sound design to explore her interests in the environmental and socio-political impacts of digital infrastructures. The project The Intangible Archives of SIIDA addresses the politics behind the use of servers in an Arctic data centre as a sovereign status for the Arctic Sami community. The video presents a data centre that fuses traditional practice and digital infrastructure using the heat of the server and Arctic conditions mimicking the 8 different temperatures to archive intangible practices that are then stored as data. 

In Giuseppe Onelia’s Vocivoro, on the other hand, the interpenetration of chemical reactions and a formal investigation of the medium generates a perturbing spatiotemporal dimension: the encounter with a dying underwater creature that chews and broods on fragments of human voices, arriving at the end with the song of a little girl that turns into an elegy. Onelia focuses on the interpenetration of different visual, gestural, and sound materials in order to explore and shape spaces, creatures, and experiences located at the extreme limits of human perception.

Alberta Pellacani presents The breeze blows high. In all her works the images, thanks to a particular technique that uses a generative analogue mode, report exactly what happens in reality, with all the pros and cons that come with it, with all those unpredictable elements that happen right in front of our eyes. Pellacani’s intention is not to circumscribe the breeze. Instead, she suggests following its path and listening to its movement through images. Naming things, he argues, is like controlling and closing what they designate. The breeze blows high is a universal invitation to observe what we are unable to see, to hear its voice even though we are unaware of its origin and direction.

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Kathryn Attrill is a visual artist based in London, originally from a small village on the Isle of Wight. Her practice interweaves the artist’s moving image with sound and text in a sculptural approach to image-making. Attrill graduated with a BA in Filmmaking at Kingston School of Art in 2017 and a MA in Contemporary Art Practice Moving Image at the Royal College of Art in 2021. Her practice investigates the broken image, personal narratives, hidden labours, the human-object relationship, and disappearing. Attril has presented her work in various exhibitions and screening programmes including ICA, Channel 4 Random Acts, Playback Festival, Montez Press Radio, Matts Gallery London, EFN Film Festival, Alchemy Film Festival and Gasworks London.
https://www.kathrynattrill.com/

Anabel Garcia – Kurland is a London-based spatial designer who focuses on the dialogue between physical and digital architectures in order to question the physical entanglement within digital practice. All her projects have carried forward the common theme of aesthetic data analysis covering the body, data exploitation, machinery, and geopolitical infrastructure through her fascination with hybrid extensions in the 21st century.
Since 2018 Anabel has been part of a research collective in ADS8 for the Het Nieuwe Instituut’s work on Automated Landscapes ‘Data Matter: Digital Networks, Data Centers & Posthuman Institutions’ in collaboration with OMA. She was a guest tutor for the Bartlett Store projects architecture play workshops and worked with director Helene Kazan as the lead digital human animator for a film/installation series ‘Frame of accountability’ which premiered at The Vera List Centre, The New School, New York in 2021.
https://anabelgk.cargo.site/

Giuseppe Onelia (Vicenza 1993) is a filmmaker working with animation, video, sound design, and text.
After graduating in Media Design and Multimedia Arts at NABA (Milan), he completed an MA in Artists’ Film & Moving Image at Goldsmiths College of London in 2019.
His practice engages with visual, gestural, and sound materials to explore spaces, creatures and experiences located at the limits of human perception.
His work has been exhibited at festivals and galleries including River Film Festival, Padua; Ariosto SpazioCinema, Milan; Enclave Gallery, London; Palazzo Bembo, Venice.
https://giuseppeonelia.com/

Alberta Pellacani was born in 1964 in Carpi, where she lives. She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and graduated in the Visual Arts Department. Since her artistic career began, she has been conducting her own research by crossing borders between painting and photography, video art and participatory art operations, documentary, drawing and theatrical performance. Since 2011 she has been using a generative analogue modality that she applies to video and photography, thanks to which she can capture the marginal happenings and minimal movements of what is observed.  She has participated in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including (1999) the 48th Venice Biennale, Italian Pavilion- Oreste; (2016-18) OVERtheREAL; (2017) Maazzeni Film Festival ; (2017/19) IBRIDA Festival; (2018) ‘Reberthing’ curated by Luigi Meneghelli, La Giarina Gallery Verona; (2018/19) “Hic et Nunc” – 7 women video artists, curated by M. M. Tozzi (New York, Cuba, Rome); (2018) ‘RESTLESS WATER in Italian Videoart’, curated by Silvia Grandi, Perama Cave, Ioannina, Greece; (2019) ‘ONDE’, video and music performance for ‘Volo IH 870’, curated by Silvia Grandi, Bologna Museo della Memoria di Ustica; (2022) VISIBILIA Palazzo Ducale di Gubbio.
https://www.albertapellacani.it/