ENG
Tunisi 8.06.2013 is a visual research on the production, diffusion and sharing of images in the countries where the Arab Revolt took place.
The project was conceived as a research on the possibility of using photography as a mean of expression and as a subject matter at the same time. Using the backlight of mobile phones and smartphones’ screens, I’ve projected on the photographic paper the pictures taken and saved by the people who lived and documented those events.
The final result reminds of a reel dotted with small photos which appear as particularly bright due to the contrast with the paper’s black background and outline a sort of map, a hypothetical satellite vision of the country. The lights casually filling the blank space of the paper represent the appearance and the evolution of those interactions that, avoiding the government’s censorship, carried out an essential task in the diffusion of information and documents.
Through social media we organized a performance event in Tunis, setting up a dark room where we printed the reel. All the participants have been invited to place their mobile phones, with their own pictures showing on the screens, on a self-made projector’s glass. The second step has been selecting and printing each image: the screen light imprinted the photo paper which, after the developing and fixing bath, created the virtual mold.
The proof of these experiences is now fixed on the paper, as a permanent sign of the important role that the communication and sharing channels played in the development of those real events. If on the one hand the active attendance of people is the main subject of the project, on the other hand it has also been the necessary condition for its realisation, through the creative process of the performance.
ITA