Projecció + col·loqui
Peter d'Agostino (Nova York, 1945) és un artista que treballa en vídeo i nous mitjans. És professor del Film and Media Arts i director del New-Tech Lab a la Universitat Temple de Filadèlfia.
Investiga els sistemes de signes personals, culturals i tecnològics, el llenguatge i la comunicació que impregnen la vida quotidiana. Aplica la semiòtica, les estratègies desconstructives i d'apropiació a l'anàlisi i crítica de l'estructura, la funció i la influència de la televisió.
Les seves obres es basen en un ampli escenari de discursos (la lingüística, la comunicació i la teoria dels mitjans de comunicació de masses, la història, l'estètica, la física, l'arquitectura), així com en formats populars i referències personals. A través del llenguatge i les tècniques de comunicació i de la televisió, analitza una cultura de consum impulsada pels mitjans i els seus sistemes d'informació.
D'Agostino, que treballa en vídeo des de 1971, continua explorant les tecnologies cada vegada més sofisticades i l’hipermèdia, incloent projectes per a la xarxa. En aquestes obres interactives amb múltiples nivells, l'espectador interactua amb la tecnologia, activant una multiplicitat de significats associats en textos no-lineals i il·limitats.
A més del seu treball en vídeo, d'Agostino ha escrit i editat nombrosos articles i llibres sobre fotografia, vídeo, llenguatge i semiòtica, incloent Transmission: Theory and Practice for a New Television Aesthetic (1985) i Transmission: Toward a Post-television Culture (coeditor, 1995).
Ha rebut beques i subvencions de diverses institucions. El seu treball ha estat difós àmpliament i exhibit a llocs com el San Francisco Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art (Nova York), Sao Paulo Biennial (Brasil) i Kwangju Biennial (Corea), així com en exposicions individuals al Museum of Modern Art (Nova York), University Art Museum (Berkeley, Califòrnia), Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston); i Philadelphia Art Museum.
D'Agostino viu a Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.
peterdagostino.com
presentació
En aquesta sessió projectarem una selecció de vídeos pertanyents a la seva sèrie World-Wide-Walks, passejades realitzades durant els últims quaranta anys per diferents parts del món. Un viatge poètic a través de múltiples camins plens de possibilitats que obren portes inimaginables al coneixement.
Peter d'Agostino també aprofitarà per parlar-nos de Surveying Video, Performance and New Media: Spain / U.S. 1970s - 2010s, un projecte en el qual està treballant actualment en col·laboració amb teòrics i professionals de l’Estat espanyol i dels EUA.
WOLD-WIDE-WALKS@40 (Selected works, 1973-2012)
2012_63:53 min
Els World-Wide-Walks de Peter d'Agostino s'han dut a terme en sis continents durant les últimes quatre dècades. Iniciat el 1973 com a "documentació/performances" en vídeo, les Walks Series van evolucionar en projectes de vídeo i internet durant la dècada dels 90 i en instal·lacions amb mitjans de comunicació mòbils i fixos a la dècada dels 2000. World-Wide-Walks explora identitats naturals, culturals i virtuals: realitats mixtes resultat de passejar a través d'entorns físics i de navegar virtualment per internet.
The Walk Series: beach walk
1973-1974_14 min
In this early, performance-based work, d'Agostino experiments with perceptions of landscape, time and point of view. The Walk Series documents three different "walks" (on a roof, a fence and a beach) that the artist took in the San Francisco area, while recording with a hand-held camera. These excursions (recorded in real-time and unedited) map the parameters of the artist's environment, as d'Agostino uses video to redefine the landscape in his own image.
Walks: pond, pass, peak / kiva, temple, pyramid
1974-1975_10:50 min
After initiating The Walk Series (1973-74) in San Francisco, d'Agostino produced pond/pass/peak as video "documentation/performances" while backpacking in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. Parallel to the natural environments of a pond, a mountain pass and a peak, the "kiva/temple/pyramid" walks were later performed in key historic cultural spaces of North America: Chaco Canyon's Great Kiva, the Sun Temple at Mesa Verde and Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal, Mexico. These early walks were the beginning of a process of exploring natural and cultural environments that has continued to evolve as the World-Wide-Walks over the past four decades.
@Vesu.Vius
1997-99_11:10 min
This video examines the many paradoxes of natural, cultural and virtual identities. Peter d'Agostino's cross-cultural interests led directly back to the personal histories and cultural memories of his Italian American roots. The video moves back and forth in time by juxtaposing iconic images of his walks on Mount Vesuvius and through Pompeii, near Naples the birthplace of his parents, with places in the Italian American community of The Bronx, New York, where he grew up. Volcanic eruptions such as that of Vesuvius in 79 AD serve as powerful metaphors for the upheavals of human displacement and disembodiment.
Between Earth & Sky: Cordoban Ceilings
2001-2003_5 min
In June 2001 during an artist's residency in Spain, Peter d'Agostino performed video walks through Cordoba's three architectural monuments: The Great Mosque, Alcazar and Synagogue, looking up with the camera toward the ceilings. When he began to edit the videos in September, 2001, the events of 9/11 were unfolding live on television.
Between Earth & Sky: MX I / pyramids
2007_3:53 min
Between Earth & Sky: MX I / pyramids is a video triptych from a suite of ten walks Peter d'Agostino performed in Mexico City and its surroundings, the east and west coasts, and the U.S. border. The MX I / pyramids walks were performed in natural settings such as the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Preserve near the Mayan ruins of Tuluum, as well as at the pyramids at Teotihuacan, Coba, and Tula, which is represented by Toltec warrior statues. The recurring image of d'Agostino's walk through a dark tunnel under the Great Pyramid of Cholula, only suggests what is not visible the viewer. This pyramid is the world's largest in its total volume.
World-Wide-Walks / SOFIA I & II
2008-2009_6 min
Peter d'Agostino performed video walks throughout the city of Sofia, Bulgaria during 2008-09. Completed two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the SOFIA project focuses on east/west divides of the cold war. It is one of a series of projects mapping a range of geo-cultural-virtual concepts that include related walks performed in both Berlin and Lodz, Poland in 1990, forming the broader World-Wide-Walks / LODZ-BERLIN-SOFIA (2009) video-web project. The World-Wide-Walks / SOFIA videos display mirror images symbolizing an overall theme of reversals. For example, use of the terms right wing / left wing in Bulgarian politics appears to have opposite meanings to that of western politics.
World-Wide-Walks / earth & sky / Donegal
2009-2010_5 min
This nine-channel video is composed of Peter d'Agostino's walks in the Irish landscape, along the coastlines and at cultural sites. The video walks performed on County Donegal's northwest coast, Arranmore Island and at some of Ireland's most important pre-historic megalithic sites including Newgrange (circa 3000 BCE) and the Grianan of Aileach, an ancient circular stone fort linked to Irish history and myth. The video is part of an installation that includes a large green tent for the video projection, an interactive website, solar cells, a photographic mural of an electric generating wind turbine and a walking post. The post is embedded with an LCD touch screen displaying quotations from scientific, theoretical and poetic sources relevant to global climate change.
World-Wide-Walks / between earth & sky / BILBAO
2011-2013_8 min
The Bilbao walks were performed from the city center to coastal regions, specifically referencing aspects of Basque geography and culture. This post-industrial city has gained notoriety for the globalization term "Bilbao Effect" after Frank Gehry's world famous Guggenheim Museum was constructed there in the late 1990s. D'Agostino's project metaphorically weaves his direct perceptions of Bilbao's old and new landscape and unique "siri-miri" weather together with elements of the region's philosophical thought, most notably that of Miguel Unamuno. Produced in the form of a video/text/web installation.
