Above: Special Version of The Possible Ties Between Illness And Success rendered out of 3 months of visits (09.08.06-12.08.06)

First example of what I called DATA cinema, that is a movie server side rendered every day showing changes due to some data retrieved from the Internet.

“The Possibile Ties Between Illness and Success” is a short movie transformed by an Internet data flux and re-edited server-side when web statistics (Google Analytics) are available: the public who visited the website could watch a new movie every day. The short movie tells the story of a ill man whose body is filled by cancer-like cells which number and position depend on the number of users – and their country of origin- visiting the website. At the time the project was online, there was no way to watch the movie if not visiting the website. Doing this the public was adding his presence on the body of the actor under the form of a cancer like cell, contributing to the spread of the illness. It was like an endless circle. This project tells about the relationships between manic-depressive illness forms and success at large and also speaks about our intimate balance between isolation and public presence that in these days of continuous exposure becomes a daily delicate negotiation. Music is by Oscar winner Gabriel Yared, while the voice over comes from the last page of American Purgatorio, a book by American writer John Haskell. Every second day of the month the process was restarting, so basically the second day of each month the server produced a film with a number of stains taken from the online visitors of the first day of that month. And so on until the end of the month, that presented the accumulation of almost 30 days of visitors. The project was online for about a year producing almost 360 movies.

The Possible Ties won “The best of the Web 2007!” at Art Fag City

Actors: Ignazio Oliva & Stefania Orsola Garello
Music: Gabriel Yared
Text: Last page of American Purgatorio by John Haskell
Voice Over ITA: Stefania Orsola Garello
Voice Over ENG: John Haskell

Code by Agustin Garzon Mason
For full credits please check the credits at the end of the video.

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The Possible Ties Between Illness And Success / sculpture-archive

I sell the first 5 months of archives generated by the server stored in five sculptures based on an iPod and a mask in painted metal (for other months please check the ViBo). Each iPod contains up to 30 films from one month of online life. In front of the screen is placed a sculpture in nanoceramic or other plastic materials depicting the last scene of the film where the two actors lye on the bed. To get the sculpture we designed a 3D model then we printed it using a 3D printer. The Installation is completed by a set of two headphones so that two people at a time can watch the movie. I wanted to make a sculpture that would allow the vision of the movie with the same intimacy that pervades the work. Hence the decision to see the film in a very small size and to build in front the screen a sort of room through which the public can see the movie. The choice of the iPod instead of other portable players is because Apple sold million pieces of that device and in the future it will be easier to preserve and to maintain the work buying new ones in case they brake.

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The Possible Ties Between Illness And Success / drawings

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The Possible Ties Between Illness And Success / Photo Installation

Above: Installation views at EFA Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, march 2007. Meme Romanticism, curated by Michele Thursz, with Tobias Bernstrup, Jeremy Blake, Claudia Hart, Michelle Handelman, Reynold Reynolds and Partick Jolley, and Carlo Zanni