Classic Dark Words

SOLO EXIBITHION by TIZIANA CONTINO

Emotional replacement

2015 version

Interactive performance and videoinstallation, 1h.

by Tiziana Contino

Performer: Tiziana Contino / Carlo Tuzza

Audio site specific and original music: Carlo Tuzza

Ph. Caterina Palermo

The interactive performance “Emotional replacement”, presented on September 5 at the opening of the exhibition “CALL US WITCHES”, is proof of participation to thorny topic of the exhibition. The violence derived from the impossibility of choice inflicted to last-born of rich families, who over the centuries have populated the cloistered convents like Montevergini, inspire the psychophysical path of  the performative action. In the past the constraint that the clerical power used on these individuals has contributed to a process of self-exclusion from the world outside the walls of the convent eluding a participatory approach with “the other”. Also it has the power of a prevaricating man to manage the movement of the performer, held phisically and emotionally in the same way many news stories today. The body is here rendered as historic filter of interaction agent-act that takes social role of cultural mediation instigating an involvement, collective action for change. “Emotional replacement” is performed in an enriched version by musician Carlo Tuzza with its refined and strategically sound system.

Emotional replacement

2009 version

performance, photo, video, videoinstallation

GEMINE MUSE – Stratificazioni

Culture Palace, Monastery of San Placido – Catania curator Ambra Stazzone, focus Angela Vettese, catalogue

Ph. Caterina Palermo

Actions repeated daily and the feelings associated them, try by the cloistered nuns that have inhabited the former monastery complex and its space, characterized by valuable architectural layers, use and emotional . This is the real point of concept of cloistered, the deprivation of contact with the outside world that can get even the rejection of the concept of other by itself, the unknown world and that this must remain as potentially contaminant that inspires Emotional Replacement, installation and interactive performance of Tiziana Contino.

text Ambra Stazzone

FEED (CON)TACT

interactive multimedia performance site specific

by Tiziana Contino

Performer Tiziana Contino

audio site specific and original music Carlo Tuzza

6 participants on formal invitation (2015 version)

Appartamento LAGO – Pescara (I)

curators Sibilla Panerai and Ivan D’Alberto

The general concept of the project is part of a series of experimental performances began during the workshop Artur Zmijewski held at the Civic Art Gallery “Montevergini” – Siracusa (I). My research is inspired by forms of expression, which are aimed at sensibilization and reflection “with / other.” There is a deep-rooted fear towards “the other from us”, “unknown”, which is directly attributable to the theory of the “uncanny” Sigmund Freud. So I focused my eyes on the activation of processes that can overturn habits made static without a reason, triggering mechanisms of opening psychophysical through the outside, “the other”. Feed / touch develops in an interactive performance that is right in the food – element of exchange, sharing, clarification of their culture and of their more intimate feel – the essential element for “approaching the other” and his understanding . A long table and chairs placed with its back turned against the edge of the table, a number of six participants (contacted through personal invitation) was sitting to eat their dinner. Peculiar is the way to carry the meal, as participants at the dinner would be blindfolded and spoon-fed to me with different parts of my body and in different ways that imply the need for a contact psychophysical consuming food. The changing of the individual with whom you will come in contact will be a different stimulus for the establishment of a report which is almost impalpable synesthetic. Also I will use the objects function as tactile stimulation of the memory, for amplify cognitive and sensory perspective. This way I will try to create from nothing a relationship of confidence or simply a relationship with me and among the diners.

Tiziana Contino offers the Apartment LAKE Pescara performance Feeding CON / TACT, in which, starting from the pleasure of conviviality, back to the primordial state of nutrition, until take directly the public.

If Francesca Lolli CibAzione is the sharing of a social issue and Lacedra is deprivation and complaint, with Tiziana Contino it becomes anthropophagic dinner in which the artist’s body is offered as food and nourishment.

text Cappa Performing Art

BLOW OUT- CONCERT FOR ANGER

interactive performance – photo – video

by Tiziana Contino

performer Tiziana Contino

performer /musicians/composers/songwriter Arch quartet (vers. 2010), Sabina Caruso (vers. 2011, 2012, 2013) , Marta Coletti (vers. 2012), Laura Masotto (vers. 2013), Carlo Tuzza (vers. 2015)

2015 I-ART, “5 piazze, 5 sensi” C.o.C.A. Archivio Biblioteca Arti Contemporanee, Modica (I) curator Chiara Canali and Canecapovolto.
Ph. Caterina Palermo

2013 PREMIO ARTE LAGUNA | finalist in performing art Arsenale, Venezia (I), curators Igor Zanti, giuria Umberto Angelini, Gabriella Belli, Adam Budak, Cecilia Freschini, Mario Gerosa, Lina Lazaar, Kanchi Mehta, Sabine Schaschl, Felix Schöber, Claudia Zanfi

2012 AAM Auditorium Sole24ore, Milano (I) curator Chiara Canali

2011 RELOAD: SO EXOTIC! Exhibition Performance Series, Officine Rosati, Roma (I) curator Chiara Vigliotti and Francesco Lucifora

2011 In Corpo video, BT’F gallery, Bologna (I) curator Emanuele Beluffi

2010 Premio Celeste finalist, selected by Antonio Arévalo, Laura Barreca, Cathryn Drake, Manuela Annibali, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania (I) curator Julia Draganovic and Gabi Scardi

Basics

An audio-visual and tactile interactive form of concert, performed by the users (public) led by myself and a string quartet/musicians. The idea comes from the absolute and widespread lack of tender-ness and confidence in contemporary society .There is a fear rooted to ‘the other by itself’, ‘the unknown ‘. This project aims to wipe out the distance and distrust we find in our daily life and in relationships with others. The performance ‘BLOW OUT – Concert for anger’ is a work of  audio-visual interaction between the audience, the orchestra and performers.

Development

At the entrance hall, the audience was invited to ‘blow out their anger ‘in a yellow balloon place on its chair together with a black marker with which ‘give a name to their anger’. The quartet/musicans have scanned the intervention of the public with ascending tones. The performer was dressed in black latex (seductive and horrifying) similarly to the figure of Medusa in Greek mythology, the mask of performer will offer opportunity for the public to express themselves freely in their anger, because not recognize a specific individual in your interlocutor, helps psychological opening. Once inflated and written to the yellow balloons audience exploded by row in row with a rate given by the performer vocally and by the quartet/musicians.

The result was a mix of music produced by the explosion of balloons and sounds produced by the quartet/musicians and the performer; an interactive dialogue, a growing feeling that finds its climax. A kind of therapy where the energy is transformed into a regenerative process, an alchemical flow in which a feeling energy like anger is purified by the expulsion and its transformation into energy of emotional impulse for a new and revitalization of the human being, who becomes music, clear sound.

BLOW OUT – concert for anger

2015, photo, lambda print on aluminium and plexiglas, video, interactive performance site specific.

I-ART, “5 piazze, 5 sensi” C.o.C.A. Archivio Biblioteca Arti Contemporanee, Modica (I) curator Chiara Canali and Canecapovolto.
Ph. Caterina Palermo

link performance and interview https://vimeo.com/151950390

BLOW OUT – concert for anger

2013, photo, lambda print on aluminium and plexiglas, video, interactive performance site specific.

PREMIO ARTE LAGUNA | finalist in performing art, Arsenale, Venezia (I), curators Igor Zanti, giuria Umberto Angelini, Gabriella Belli, Adam Budak, Cecilia Freschini, Mario Gerosa, Lina Lazaar, Kanchi Mehta, Sabine Schaschl, Felix Schöber, Claudia Zanfi

BLOW OUT – concert for anger

2012, interactive performance site specific

AAM , Auditorium sole24ore, Milano (I) curator Chiara Canali

BLOW OUT – concert for anger

2011, photo, lambda print on aluminium and plexiglas, video, interactive performance site specific.

RELOAD: SO EXOTIC! Exhibition Performance Series, Officine Rosati, Roma (I) curator Chiara Vigliotti, selected by Francesco Lucifora

Link to the performance and the curator’s interview https://youtu.be/f52-Yx_wcfM?si=wb_ZxxMRykwQB15B&t=722

BLOW OUT – concert for anger

2010, photo, lambda print on aluminium and plexiglas, video, interactive performance site specific.

link performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG8oxInxfWc

2010 Premio Celeste, finalist, selected by Antonio Arévalo, Laura Barreca, Cathryn Drake, Manuela Annibali Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania (I) curators Julia Draganovic and Gabi Scardi.
Ph. Caterina Palermo

MIMESI/METESSI

interactive multimedia performance and enviromental size installation

2014 Museum of Contemporary Art Villa Croce – Genova

The project Mimesi/Metessi is an interactive performance inspired by two basic concepts: the Freudian “uncanny” as scary and disorienting that emerge if stimulated because we have known and unknown at the same time, and that of transgenderism seen as a moment of “transit” over his own body, on / in that of others. In everyday life there is often a feeling of loss caused by the discomfort of discrimination at the hands of “the other from us,” that human being like us, but totally alien to our life, family circle or in other cases to dissimilar traditions, customs and beliefs .

The Mimesis (imitation) and Metessi (participation), might be a empirical tools through which you can create a non-verbal communication and deep exchange between different subjects. The performance is based on the exchange of clothes, which become a metaphor for extreme and distinctive identity, as shown by the studies of Adam D. Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (USA). In fact, step into the shoes of others allows us to perceive us in a different way from the usual and the discovery of one’s own identity and dress-it helps to understand it. The exchange of clothes can therefore become a cognitive and cultural exchange. This will create a two-way and reciprocal double experience: watching themselves on the body of the other by altering the perception of oneself and watch / hear each other on our body, perceiving the differences / similarities with empathy.

This melting pot will take place by two booths, one for the performer and one for the guest. The performer asks the guest to be able to exchange their identity through clothing. The two then wear the shoes of others will be compared with mimetic gestures and movements. Juxtaposed to the booth there will be two representatives of the unknown universal emblematic images. The two portraits are transgender, “Portrait of an Unknown Man” by Antonello Da Messina and the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo (on interpreted by Duchamp). The entire performance was interacted by a live musician (Valentina Amandolese) through the use of synths. The audio product will create an advantage in the exchange of clothes.

Leonardo Sciascia theorized an order and biotechnical similarities to that effect recognized in the “Portrait of an Unknown Man,” the “likeness”, the unknown universal attributable to each of us. A similar argument can be done for the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, who in his Duchamp’s readymade expands even more universal sense of this woman / man unknown, uncanny; an anonymous universal stranger.

During the action, the performer will wear clothes that underlie the precise roles in society with the aim of highlighting the diversity of identity, transgenderism inherent in all of us.

SHARESIGN

interactive multimedia performance

2014 Museum of Contemporary Art MAAM – Roma

The sharing see us at all times of the day and social networks are currently the major holders. The type of sharing that you create on the internet is individualistic, based on the creation of a space-time distance predetermined by the user. The purpose of my action, on the contrary, based on an interaction “in person” with the audience through the sharing of signs constructed in the ‘here and now” of performance. These signs will aim to build a personal language and will be developed through a mimesis with who interact. My first idea will serve to establish a form of physical contact, verbal and gestural-language signs in order to reflect on contemporary communication, identity and its development over the border of the digital display.

PERTURBAMENTO – UNHEIMLICHKEIT

interactive performance – photo – video

performer Tiziana Contino

performer /songwriter / musician Sabina Caruso

2011 PERTURBAMENTO – UNHEIMLICHKEIT, solo exhibition, Sponge Living Space, Pergola + skype with ABADIR (I) curator Chiara Vigliotti

A double setting for this interactive performance that will take place in two locations and during two different openings. A Living Space Sponge Pergola (PU) with solo exhibition of  Tiziana Contino,”DISTURBANCE – UNHEIMLICHKEIT” and Academy of Fine Arts ABADIR, Catania with the collective exhibition “ILE FLOATING” where Contino is one of the artists on display. The performer built an essential scenic plant in ABADIR and was accompanied on guitar by songwriter Sabina Caruso, the audience can’t interact, but only assist. While in Sponge LivingSpace, the audience can interact with the performers by Skype to Catania.

A virtual bridge that breaks down the boundaries and distances, a union of space and purpose in honor of the seventh day of contemporary. Two years ago at the MOMA in New York retrospective of Marina Abramovic was called The Artist is Present: the artist sitting at a table welcomed in first person the audience in silence, for 8 hours a day for 3 months, all days.

A dramatic improvement in the world of performance and a reference for the “disturbance” by Tiziana Contino. Today, with the network you can connect from anywhere on the planet and delete any distance, Contino elects dialogue with the viewer, as a pillar of his research since the beginning of her performative act, 2003 / 4 and its interaction joins the multimedia, using the video, computer, internet to bring the act ancestral dramatic action, from greek verb = δραω do, to a decidedly contemporary realities and fortunately contaminated by technology. Contino is present but not physically, this is the central aspect of the project that we are witnessing. The furniture irreverent flavor that refer to an allegorical art in the way that mystifies the true nature of provocative, like the sofa in the middle between good and evil, the tea service between integration and disintegration, which offered up to the infusion, was differ in nature between the artist and served to the public, instead of representing the message.

Our present lives, suffers and reacts to globalization, we are the promised land to the south of the world economy and relegated to the capitalist West. Wild places, like our islands in the heart of the Mediterranean, once a haven for holiday hell today are refugees, racism again knocking at our door, even the most liberal and establish a dialogue with as frightening feelings, such as distress and discrimination , is looming as a very high mountain, whose summit is still a virgin and climbers hone the technique to be able to climb. Tiziana Contino stages this condition, he speaks openly, inviting the viewer to sit on uncomfortable and offering tips to drink a liquid alien and unpleasant. The artist is the silence and addresses, records the reactions, the causes giving rise to an inevitable reflection. In other rooms, an overview of previous work will understand the foundations of research, allowing the viewer to make a complete journey in his work. Tiziana Contino is an artist who defies conformity to highlight the discomfort his company now impossible to ignore. The process of education and intregation is a must for the art of Tiziana that she takes responsibility for bringing it to the center of this exhibition.

text by Chiara Vigliotti

DIFFERENT BY – TRAVELLING

interactive performance – photo – video

performer Tiziana Contino

realized during the residency with Marinella Senatore

link video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBiP9dTNcTw

link backstage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxhzEIzCDiw

The structure of the video is based on the editing of a public live performance, held in one of the central squares of San Giovanni Valdarno. On the pavement lies a stylized geographical map of Europe, measuring 3 meters by 2, where the names of the states that comprise it are omitted.Only the lines demarcating the boundaries of the territories are present, boundaries invented by humans to organize spaces and cultures. Passersby, invited to play the game of “hopscotch,” superimposed on the map, create a sort of geographical re-writing, placing a representative phrase of a feeling or desire at the edge of each state, thereby nullifying the concept of political and identity borders. Each “place,” therefore, becomes simply a place in itself, the result of a journey that interprets the world as a space of the universal, starting from the personal.To express in a concise formula the actions of each of the performance’s protagonists, the idea is that the path FROM (someone) TOWARDS (a place) TO (reach), sometimes that very place is also DIFFERENT FROM what we would have desired.

text by Fiammetta Strigoli

BLOW OUT / BREATHE

interactive performance, photo, video

Ph. Carmen Cardillo

2008 interactive performance for ‘Art in tram’, Piemonte Region, Province of Turin, GAI- young italian artist, Albertina Academy of Turin, National Association Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries, Turin (curator Rosanna Musumeci) (I)

2009 DRY AS DUST Zelle Arte Contemporanea, Palermo (I) curators Francesco Galluzzi, Federico Lupo

“Blow out / breath” by Tiziana Contino, is an intense interactive performance. The artist transfer his action to the audience, and through the use of yellow balloons exorcise the fears of the people, allows them to avert the anger through the air blowing out by lungs, dispersing far knows himself. The surprising result is itself purposely and unexpectedly, a performance.

text Agata Polizzi