Lezioni d’archivio presents a selection of projects created in an educational context that focus on the reuse of archival material: a contemporary look at the private and public memories of the last century in an attempt to question—and perhaps understand—the present, through visual and sound experimentation.
Here are the three projects selected for this year’s edition of Archivio Aperto.
Multiverso Toti 1924-2024
By Biblioteca Totiana
In the mid-1980s, Gianni Toti (1924-2007), key figure of international video art, writer, journalist, poet, filmmaker, and inventor of poetronics, realized Incatenata alla pellicola (Chained to Film), a video work of 50 minutes created by treating electronically a single fragment (just over a minute long) of Vladimir Majakovsky’s film, which miraculously survived a fire.
Images that generate new images. Works that generate other works. Thoughts that generate new thoughts. Toti’s video art is characterized by a powerful factor: the creative reuse of already existing visual and sound sources. Thanks to the collaboration with Conservatorio L. Refice di Frosinone, Biblioteca Totiana involved four young artists from CREA (Center for Audiovisual Research and Processing) who, led by Professor Alessandro Cipriani, re-interpreted Gianni Toti and Marinka Dallos’ small-format films using new audiovisual products.
These are 8mm and 16mm films from the 1950s and 1970s portraying trips that Toti made to different countries as a special reporter for the weekly magazine “Vie Nuove” (New Paths): Prague during the revolution, Cuba, Spain, Tunisia. The films also represent a rich family history of Sunday trips, holidays in Hungary and on-site inspections in Syria for his film E di Shaul (And of Shaul) (1973). The films are preserved and digitized by the Audiovisual Archive of the Workers’ and Democratic Movement ETS Foundation and the Home Movies Foundation – National Family Film Archive, who are partners of the project, making these images available.
The project is part of “Multiverse Toti 1924-2024,” dedicated to Gianni Toti’s 100th anniversary.
Short films featured:
– mistero infinibile (endless mystery) by Daniele Grande / Italy / 2024 / 5’ – editing – music – sound by Daniele Grande
– legati ad un fiume: dieci storie legat’appese – storia undicesima (related to a river: ten hanging stories – 11th story ) by Simone Spampinato / Italy / 2024 / 9’ 30’’ – editing – music – sound by Simone Spampinato
– Bestie (Beasts) by Armando Girolami / Italy / 2024 / 6’ – editing – music – sound by Armando Girolami
– pareti di carta (Paper walls) by Francesca Fabrizi / Italy / 2024 / 7’ – editing – music – sound by Francesca Fabrizi
INCOMbenze
Archivi Risonanti
Archivi Risonanti (“Resounding Archives”) is a workshop dedicated to the soundtracking and scoring of archival amateur images and home films extracted from Memoryscapes, the Fondazione Home Movies’s online platform committed to rediscovering Italy’s private heritage in small format.
The workshop involved students from the three-year schools of New Technologies of Art and Cinema at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara, coordinated by Massimo Carozzi, during the academic years 2022/23 and 2023/24.
Students were invited to explore Memoryscapes and freely interpret, through sounds, the materials in the archive.
