DESERTO by Jacopo Miliani

DESERTO by Jacopo Miliani Fellow artist solo project

07/10/2017

Centro de residencias artísticas (Nave 16), Matadero

Madrid

Jacopo Miliani

The video Deserto (2017) by Jacopo Miliani reflects on the possibility of multiple identities through the invention of a new language. The desert, the place where both the film Teorema (1968) by Pier Paolo Pasolini and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) by Stephan Elliot end in screams of pain and pleasure – and perhaps rebirth – has been used by the artist as an ideal meeting place between the two protagonists: the Guest (a mysterious stranger) and Bernadette (a transgender) both played by the same actor, Terence Stamp. A macho actor and an iconic figure of the liberated 1960s, Stamp plays respectively an enigmatic stranger, both angelic and demonic, who seduces an entire bourgeois family, from peasant maid to paterfamilias, and the juicy role of a drag queen. In the work, a voice with the use of an invented manual communication conveys a sort of litany, while his perceptual state is animated by minimal and at the same time flamboyant images.

Filmed during his research residency, in Deserto Miliani has collaborated with several artists based in Madrid that work in different disciplines – a usual collaborative practice within the artist’s methodology. The video moves through several carefully managed elements and interpreters: a mysterious body, long red nails, a new sign language, a voice (Ángela de la Serna) a text (Jacopo Miliani, Pier Paolo Pasolini, CeCe Peniston), a dance-refrain (Antonio de Rosa, Mattia Russo//Kor’sia) and photography (Carlos Fernández-Pello).

The project reactivates the deviations of the film’s two protagonists to stimulate other movements in the spectator’s mind. Verbal and visual language interweaves with sensory and sensual lexicon in a dense frame of elements appealing to the spectator’s vast wealth of knowledge. By probing the imagination of the spectator, who can only freely interpret evoked associations of an identity suspended between the film’s dual references and abstract suggestions, Deserto offers a cinematic experience in which the spectator perceives a film and re-elaborates its perception into consciousness and competence. (VV)

Credits

Concept: Jacopo Miliani
Texts: Jacopo Miliani, Pier Paolo Pasolini, CeCe Peniston 

 Photography: Carlos Fernández-Pello  Voice: Ángela De la Serna  Dancers: Antonio de Rosa, Mattia Russo//Kor’sia Casting: Gema Melgar

Wardrobe: Special thanks to Retro City

Curated by Veronica Valentini
Organised and produced by Emma and Centro de residencias artísticas, Matadero Madrid

↖ All pics by Carlos Fernandez-Pello