Without Direction (2020) – Fabrizio Narcisi

Fabrizio Narcisi

Without Direction

2020

0’30” IN LOOP COLOR HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO TRIPTYCH ON 32” PLASMA DISPLAY MOUNTED ON THREE STAND

POEM WRITTEN ON A TOSHIBA T3100 AND SAVED ON FLOPPY DISK EXPOSED ON BLACK MARBLE PEDESTAL

TWO CHANNELS STEREO SOUND

3D: AYDIN REZAZADE AUDIO: FRANCESCO NEGLIA

Photo MARCO AURELIO MENDIA

This work and its form are children of the Covid-19 virus. During the quarantine period I grew a spontaneous interest towards the side effects that the pandemic has had on the animal world and how man has always influenced their natural behaviour in a negative way. Some obvious examples were the monkeys in Thailand who, without the usual tourist flow, ran out of food and poured in the cities fighting a few bananas, the deer in Japan who suffered from the same phenomenon or even just a herd of mountain goats running around in a town in Wales.

After that, I found myself continuing my research focusing on the pains of the animal world caused by mankind, focusing mainly on Peter Singer’s antispecies theory in “Animal Liberation”, until I came across the work by David Wojnarowicz portraying the “buffalo jump”. Roused by the impact and violence of this photograph, the idea unfolded in me.

Investigating the meaning of Wojnarowicz’s work, I then discovered the past of this image by linking it to the present and future time. The Native Americans who, through specially built stone lanes, led the bisons to the cliff making them fall into the valley below to meet death; today’s animal world, forced to adapt to laws and behaviours dictated by man and unrelated to their instincts; the contamination of mankind on nature and its irreversible effects.

A social and political metaphor for rebirth. An apocalyptic pessimistic vision, influenced by cinema, literature and comics. I imagined that even after the global extinction of mankind and animals, our actions, like an echo, as would still resonate through history. That the action of man, not even once extinct, will give chances of redemption to the machines that replaced him.

This project was born in an historically unusual and unexpected time that has generated valuable remote collaborations, showing me that sharing and communication have never been so important as in these months: the 3D artist who worked on animation lives in Tehran, while the sound composition was created by an author based between Paris and Italy.

The three screens represent three different times:

Past / birth: empty cliff

Present / death: cliff with bison-robots in the act of falling

Future / rebirth: empty cliff

The black marble on which “the message” lies is the funeral and noble version of the cliff. The message is played on the screen of a first generation laptop. The Toshiba T3100 computer has been selected for its endurance over time. Unlike computers from the early 2000s, this vintage 1986 model does not need any updates to be able to be started and used. I imagine a future where humanity has become extinct and where older machines can still be used. It is the victory of the analogue over the digital, of the old over the new.