Garush Melkonyan

The Italian Method

‘The Italian Method’ uses a diptych of two screens to stage the confrontation of a ‘place’ and a ‘non-place’ (both visual and metaphorical) while creating tensions between the representation of reality versus fiction by blurring the separation between ‘person’ versus ‘Character’. The title is referring to the sound recording technique largely adopted by the post-war Italian cinema to cut costs with actors having to re-record the dialogues afterwards in a studio. A similar technique was used here, but the sound was recorded from the image on the right (library) and the actor had to lip-synch to the monologue on the spot in the image on the left (void).

The Italian Method

‘The Italian Method’ uses a diptych of two screens to stage the confrontation of a ‘place’ and a ‘non-place’ (both visual and metaphorical) while creating tensions between the representation of reality versus fiction by blurring the separation between ‘person’ versus ‘Character’. The title is referring to the sound recording technique largely adopted by the post-war Italian cinema to cut costs with actors having to re-record the dialogues afterwards in a studio. A similar technique was used here, but the sound was recorded from the image on the right (library) and the actor had to lip-synch to the monologue on the spot in the image on the left (void).

Cosmovision

As the celestial bodies slowly take on human form, with first uncertain movements finding assurance, a kind of reconnaissance mission begins, surveying a strange, unknown landscape. Their perplexed eyes scan a vast observatory lost in the middle of the mountains, a rundown and deserted space. The “meeting” that was supposed to take place now seems impossible, as well as any understanding of the events leading up to it. The buildings, facilities, and devices they discover–traces of intense human activity and signs of an attempt to surpass Earthen bounds–are nonetheless incomprehensible to the beings, offering no clue except for the disarming, enigmatic idea that the world might have been founded in its own image.

Cosmovision

As the celestial bodies slowly take on human form, with first uncertain movements finding assurance, a kind of reconnaissance mission begins, surveying a strange, unknown landscape. Their perplexed eyes scan a vast observatory lost in the middle of the mountains, a rundown and deserted space. The “meeting” that was supposed to take place now seems impossible, as well as any understanding of the events leading up to it. The buildings, facilities, and devices they discover–traces of intense human activity and signs of an attempt to surpass Earthen bounds–are nonetheless incomprehensible to the beings, offering no clue except for the disarming, enigmatic idea that the world might have been founded in its own image.