Live performance: Tribute to Federico Fellini on the centenary of his birth
On the occasion of the centenary of its birth, the Ca’ Foscari Short Film Festival intends to pay homage to the great Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini with a very particular artistic-multimedia tribute, therefore in line with the visionary genius and eclecticism of the director from Rimini. Starting from the images of some of the Maestro’s most beloved films, artist Igor Imhoff has experimented a new form of interactive animation, with images projected on an animated background that interact with the “live” interpretation of the actor Marco Tonino. The performance is also completed by a “reinvention” of the sounds of Fellini’s films, thanks to further experiments carried out under the guidance of sound engineer Davide Tiso by Graim Studio of the Conservatory of Vicenza “Arrigo Pedrollo”.
Igor Imhoff
The artist Igor Imhoff is now professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and Ca’ Foscari University in Venice; he started his career as developer and designer of 16-bit videogames before approaching the world of digital art. Currently his work mainly focuses on motion picture and visual experimentation.
He has participated in numerous exhibitions and festivals, both in Italy and abroad, often getting recognition as in the case of the award-winning video Anafora (2016). The work, conceived as an interactive installation, narrates of a journey inspired by the Daunians, a Balkan origin population, and by their traces carved on a funerary rock stele. These marks become the starting point for a cave painting-digital creation which attests the historic and visual legacy of a territory, witness of migrations and travelling populations. Within the project of the Veneto Museum Focus Point Il primo cinema della storia. Obiettivo sul Paleolitico, the artist shoots another video combining primitive, symbolic and anthropological elements to the digital art: Fuoco Colore Movimento (2019), an animated reinterpretation of themes linked both to prehistorical signs and to the wonders of pre-cinema experimentation by Muybridge and Duchamp.
Besides being involved in the field of animation, as in Planets (2012), the artist has frequently been committed to video mapping, as in Quarantana (2019), made for the opening night of the Manzoni Museum in Lecco, and Iunae Lumen (2019), with live music by SubArdente orchestra, made for the inauguration of the animation festival Imaginaria -VII edition in Conversano (BA). However, they are just some examples of the expressive digital language used by Imhoff. Tesla and Volo IH 870 date back to year 2019. The first is an interactive animation show presented at the University of Belgrade in collaboration with the Fine Arts Academy, the Music Conservatory Giuseppe Tartini in Trieste, the Association Viva Comix, Fabbrica del Vedere and Piccolo Festival dell’Animazione. The i animation stems out from the idea of retracing the life of the genius Tesla over different phases of his life: the birth, the great inventions, the conflict with Edison, the eccentric personality, the life in a constant precarious balance between science and magic and, eventually, the decline, the solitude and the inexorable end. Volo IH 870 presented at the Museum in memory of Ustica, is a new interpretation by Imhoff, made in collaboration with other artists to repropose the tragic plane crash massacre. A multimedia live of videos, art and music in 3 acts (Sotto traccia, Muro di Carta e Onde), using three different types of expressive video language, all this accompanied by the real time execution of a musical composition ranging from minimal electronical sounds to noises. Sotto Traccia, video performance of the artist, is a dreamlike transcription of the first hours of that night, made with a graphic digital animation which retraces the moments of the flight: the departure of passengers, unconscious of what is about to happen to them, the air battle, to end up with the unexpected explosion and the disappearance of the plane through the waves.
Instead, less recent works such as Kurgan (2013) and Zero (2014), are examples of video art born from the idea of mixing the digital world with archetypal or ancestral impulses. Zero is the narration of a primordial world immersed in darkness, where figures are endlessly wondering, maybe in search for food. In Kurgan is surrounded by a stony silence, in an hyper realistic setting where bright entities materialize and engage themselves in a violent fight.
His artistic research is thus dedicated to experimentation in all its forms, from 2D and 3D to immersive VR, alternating between video animation production and planning interactive works; spacing from theatrical performances to video mapping; always attracted by the avant-garde style but never forgetting the visual and sound experimentations of motion picture by the great cinema master.
Marco Tonino
Marco Tonino, born in Friuli in 1982, studied environmental sciences at Ca’ Foscari until he obtained a doctorate; so he decided to make his passion a job: devoting himself to theater. Since 2013 he has been an actor and organizer for the Malmadur company and since 2015 he has been an actor and co-author of the video project Frullatorio. In 2016 he participated as an interpreter in the “fusion” project between neuroscience and dramatic arts Habeas Corpus – Bodies in collaboration with Vittorio Gallese and The Prada Foundation.
He participated in the Venice Theater Biennale in the acting workshops of Lluís Pasqual, Willem Dafoe, Letizia Russo and Franco Visioli, Vincent Thommaset, as well as in the workshops with Sandra Mangini, Luciano Colavero, Arianna Scommegna, Claudio Morganti, Chiara Guidi, Daria Deflorian and Antonio Tagliarini.
Many are his interpretations for the Venice Biennale: in 2011 with L’inadeguato, directed by Dora Garcia; in 2015 with The sinthome score project; in La Polizia by S. Mrozek (directed by Luciano Colavero, a production of the Ca ’Foscari Theater); in 2017 for Febo Teatro and jAR Creative Group in the Azzurra Presenza show. More recently, in 2018 for the Starlùc show by the Malmadur company, in Homo ludens in 2019, in the drama and live performance of the Japanese director Oku Shutaro 3D Nò – Aoi no ue – Funa Benkei.
