 |
||||
At first glance Olivo Barbieri’s films and photographs appear as models of cities from around the globe, miniature sets suggestive of children’s toys and games found in the attic. Short vignettes occur as a single automobile comes briefly into focus, then flicks away as figures sleepily move along a blurred sidewalk. But once one discovers that Barbieri’s slow-moving studies of the metropolis consist of actual footage (35 mm or High Definition Video) of the city and not of a model, expectations change along with the perspective. Shot mostly from helicopters and using a tilt-shift lens to allow for selective blurring of the image, Barbieri’s site_specific series of films (which include site_specific Roma 04, site_specific Las Vegas 05, and site_specific Shanghai 06, 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively) elicit a kind of misrecognition: The viewer sees forms he knows- the Colosseum of Rome and McDonalds are both instantly recognizable- but the transfigured landscape Barbieri presents reveals new and unsettling qualities in places long considered familiar. Also, because the film is also shot at very high speed, the action then slows to a near standstill, further emphasizing the dreamy, model-like quality of the films.
Although Barbieri’s brightly lit works possess a halcyon and nearly childlike quality, there is often something ominous about them. Perhaps it is the sensation of witnessing what creeps in at the edges of perception: the terrible beauty in the broken down car lots of Rome and the candy-colored palette of Las Vegas buildings already in decay remind us that we sometimes selectively restrict our own perception of our immediate surroundings without realizing it. This recognition, combined with an ever-pervasive sense of post–9/11 surveillance and security, raises Barbieri’s films beyond mere studies of the city. Rather, his carefully selected scenes of centers and peripheries (set to minimal, manipulated sound or silence) offer a study in the Unhomely, a recognition of the ways in which places we think we recognize still possess a potential for otherness, newness, and the strange.
Accordingly, Olivo Barbieri’s newest project, SEVILLA Π(∞) 06, is a study of the city and numerous sites adjacent to Seville. They appear at once familiar, yet brand new. Significantly, Barbieri has filmed long stretches along the coast of Andalusia and the Strait of Gibraltar, further suggesting the fragile proximity between Southern Europe and Northern Africa. (JT)
|
||||
|
|
|||
|
||||
