The 3 Francesca’s by family name Fini, Leoni and Lolli are striking in the Italian contemporary art scene not only through the same first name Francesca, but primarily, of course, through their individual creativity in the same field of artistic expression, e.g. artistic (live) performance and moving images e.g. video performance & video art – making all three of them predestined for – The Hall of Fame @ The New Museum of Networked Art.
The feature starts with an introduction, the Lockdown project “My Name is Francesca”, an online performance action during the Corona pandemic “Lockdown” in 2020, bringing the 3 Francesca’s also together in a digital performance online on 15 July 2020, 19 h, offering now the chance to re-view this digital spectacle as streaming video.
This introduction shows already the characteristics of the artistic personality of the 3 Francesca’s, which the main part of this feature is underlining through the selection of 10 videos by each artist – the variety in approaching the artistic goal in each video/artistic action – three artist personalities operating at the essence of art, and – humanity!
Through their female power and as a light in the darkness of The Summer of 2022, The 3 Francesca’s are representing the ideal Ambassadors for Peace and Freedom – in solidarity with Ukraine in the framework of the “Peace Letter to Ukraine Project” – The New Museum of Networked Art initiated an 1 March 2022 on occasion of the Russian war against Ukraine – a war intending nothing else than destruction and misery in Ukraine endangering Peace and Freedom, not only in Europe but worldwide, by replacing Peace through War, Humanity through Violence, Diversity through Uniformity, Truth through Fakes and Freedom through Totalitarianism.
The 3 Francesca’s are standing as the symbol for Freedom – the freedom of the word, expression and movement – the fertile soil for the arts, as well as for a free and liberal democratic society.
In so far, The 3 Francesca’s Project is transporting also the message of Hope – through art!
The 3 Francesca’s – do, however, not act always alone, but often in partnership with single persons or a team. Often a view on the credits only gives an idea of the status of these partners. In case of Francesca Leoni it is different- she is acting as an artist/performer individually and officially in partnership with Davide Mastrangelo, as well – therefore it is of interest for the viewer to recover the different sides of this Francesca, how her acting/re-acting/performance is changing through the physical communication with her partner. The selection of videos is therefore taking her standing alone responsibility into account, as well as her responsibility in partnership with Davide Mastrangelo.
That’s also the reason – why the title “The 3 Francesca’s” is extended by (+)
Faithful to its nature as a laboratory open to artistic experimentation that deliberately keeps its distance from formalist frameworks and allows the confluence of a variety of narrative codes and contents, MNIF, the all-female Italian video art project composed of the three Italian video artists and filmmakers Francesca Fini, Francesca Leoni and Francesca Lolli, with the collaboration of Francesca Interlenghi, will present the digital show in streaming entitled “OVER MY SKIN” on 15 July 2020 at 7 pm.
Francesca Fini brings to the stage a performative narrative in three acts, symbolic and open to interpretation, which takes place in a white, intact and artificial, artificial place, where we witness a violent act: the management of a barrel of blue liquid and viscous. An iconic water, a stylized cartoon water, which becomes meaning and sign. But first it is necessary to kill the audience, with emoticon smiles that a man in white draws on the rubbery surface of large red balloons suspended in thin air. Balloons that are detonated with a calibrated and clinical rhythm, one after the other, with a long pin, splashing red liquid on the walls of the room and on the man’s white suit. The ending seems to transform the room into a madhouse with padded walls. The jacket of the man in white has turned into a straitjacket, among the patches of blue liquid, scattered on the shiny and slippery floor as in the belly of a whale and which the insane man dressed in white must clean and collect, crawling and wriggling across the floor.
The reflection of Francesca Leoni instead moves from a series of questions: what I buy defines me? Is it possible not to buy in the consumer society? Over the span of six years, the artist collected and kept 3,500 receipts (the first dating back to January 2014). Three kilos of non-recyclable chemical paper that tell, in a certain sense, a part of her story and trace, in black and white, her movements, her habits, tell where she went, what time and what she bought. On his skin that paper, those purchases, those habits that he is unable to leave. On his skin, non-recyclable chemical paper that is reproduced every time he makes a purchase. There remains the proposal and the possibility of digitizing all receipts in the future, where? In a database? What power will those who come into possession of this database have?
Francesca Lolli in turn proposes a video performance entitled Memories divided into three chapters (one of three | two of three | three of three): a narrative path that insists on the theme of memories. The first chapter, set inside a house, deals with the theme of personal memory and develops thanks to the action of a woman who positions herself within an environment, apparently familiar, something that seems to belong to her, while the memories of other people speak for him. The other two chapters deal respectively with the theme of collective memory, the location chosen in this case is a forest, and the eradication of memory. The latter concept finds its performative habitat in a quarry, an alienating landscape with lunar features. The stories of others follow one another reminding us that, probably, the memory of a fact is more powerful than the fact itself.
MNIF is once again confirmed as the place where possibilities coexist, which in its various forms stimulates the expansion of creativity, community organization and the direct experience of performing art.
OVER MY SKYN digital show in streaming
by Francesca Fini | Francesca Leoni | Francesca Lolli
Wednesday 15 July at 19:00
@ Torrance Art Museum Los Angeles - 4-25 June 2022
Selection for Peace LETTERS 7 Show @ Torrance Art Museum Los Angeles – 4-25 June 2022
Peace Letters 10
curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
The 3 Francesca’s (+) – featuring Italian video/performance art by
Francesca Fini – Francesca Leoni – Francesca Lolli
part 1
Over My Skin – Lockdown Performances 2020
Francesca Fini – Water Blues, 2020, 17:00
Francesca Leoni – Homo Shopper, 2020, 15:00
Francesca Lolli – Memories, 2020, 15:00
part 2
Solo
Francesca Lolli – The Dying Lilium, 2016, 03:27
Francesca Lolli – The Lovers, 2015, 02:53
Francesca Lolli – Atonement/Espiazione, 2018, 05:11
Francesca Leoni / Davide Mastrangelo – INS(h)IDE, 2011, 3:00
Francesca Leoni – MeMini, 2016 , 3:53
Francesca Leoni – Ego- Crazia ( Chapter 1), 2016, 8’20”
Francesca Fini – With An Helmet – fair & lost, 2013, 5:23
Francesca Fini – WOMBS, 2012, 6:00
Francesca Fini – Skinned, 2018, 7:24
Peace Letters 7
https://cinema.nmartproject.net/cinema-u-7/
Francesca Fini is an interdisciplinary artist focusing on new media, experimental cinema and performance art. She lives and works in Rome.
The focus of her work is always the body and its own narrative power, but inserted in a sort of exuberant “multimedia pot” where live videoart pieces are mixed with generative audio, lo-fi technologies and homemade interaction design devices.
Among the most important art events in which she took part in the last few years, we would mention the 2011 WRO Biennale in Poland, Currents New Media Santa Fe, CINEMED Film Festival in Montpellier, Berlin Directors Lounge Germany, IKONO TV Film Festival Germany, Videoformes Clermont Ferrand, FILE Electronic Language International Festival in Brasil, Athens Videoart Festival, LPM Rome, Proyector Festival Madrid, CYBERFEST Russia, Videoart Yearbook and Robot Festival Bologna, NordArt Germany, Instants Video numériques et poétiques Marseille and the Japan Media Arts Festival Tokyo.
In 2012 she has been invited to the first Venice International Performance Art Week, featuring among the others the work of Valie Export, Jan Fabre, Yoko Ono, Boris Nieslony and Hermann Nitsch. In 2013 she won the FONLAD Performance Art Residency in Coimbra and was invited in Chicago for the Rapid Pulse Performance Art Festival. In 2014 she has been selected for the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, organized by the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
In 2014 and 2016 she was artist in residence at Bob Wilson’s Watermill Center, NY.
In 2016 she wrote and directed Ophelia did not drown; an experimental feature film based on the hybridization between found-footage (from the national archive Istituto Luce Cinecittà) and original contemporary performative language. The film premiered in New York, Clermont-Ferrand and at Macro Contemporary Museum in Rome.
She is cited by Treccani Encyclopedia as one of the greatest exponents of cyber-performance in Italy.
Participant in
VideoChannel – [self]~imaging artists portraying themselves in film & video – NewMediaFest’2010
CologneOFF VI – 6th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2010
CologneOFF VII – 7th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2011
CologneOFF VIII – 8th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2012
CologneOFF IX – 9th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2013
CologneOFF X – 10th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2014
animateCOLOGNE 2012
animateCOLOGNE 2013
animateCOLOGNE 2014
animateCOLOGNE 2016
artvideoKOELN – audiovisual experiences 2015
The iTerror Memorial 2016
The Wake Up! Memorial 2017
The W:OW Project 2018
Francesca Fini is participating in total in about 50 videoart programs curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne shown together with networking partners all over the world.
Agricola de Cologne interviews Francesca Fini – 2011
Interview; 10 questions
1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background
I live in Rome, Italy, where I work as a filmmaker for independent TV productions. I also run my own company producing underground documentaries about borderline topics. I have a graphic design background, having studied ad IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) and at the Quasar Institute of Rome – Design University.
2. When, how and why started you filming?
I started very early, before the Digital Age with little superVHS cameras. I’ve been always obsessed by the need of documenting my life. In the year 2001 I started filming clips just for experimental purposes.
3. What kind of subjects have your films?
My independent documentaries investigate the relationship between everyday people and some major topics such as sexuality, society and death. In my videoart I somehow do the same thing, with the difference that I’m not investigating anymore, I’m revealing my dreams and nightmares in a sort of surreal scenario in which I’m the main character. You can tell that my videoart is a creative documentation of an endless performance of mine.
4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?
No really, every film I do is different from the other and I don’t consciously follow any style or principle besides the aim of doing good cinema. I want to communicate, to shock and to seduce, and I’m trying to do this with the concept of my movies but also with a very diligent imagery and technical quality. You can tell that my videos are strongly recognizable.
5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.
I use a sony XDCAM Full HD but also Canon EOS photocameras. I edit footage with final cut. I also use photoshop for frame-by-frame editing and animation.
6. The field of “art and moving images” (one may call it videoart or also differently) is is manifesting itself as an important position in contemporary art. Tell me more about your personal position and how you see the future of this field ( your personal future and the future of “art and moving images”)
I personally think that videoart is the most contemporary form of art, along with performance and live art. Those kind of expression are the most suitable to represent our times.
7.How do you finance your films?
I run a little video-production company working with tv companies and marketing agencies, I invest parts of my earnings in my videoart.
8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team?
if you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?
I think that working in a team is very important when you do filmmaking, at least in the pre-production and production stage – it is actually the only way to make things work at that point. But I need to be totally by myself in the post-production stage. All alone in a little dark room, at night, surrounded by silence… that to me is the moment where magic happens and the movie really comes to life.
9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?
The noise of the world, all the things that I live and experience everyday, Reality.
10. What are your plans or dreams as a film/video maker?
Just to keep going this way
Francesca Fini
10 videos 2009-2018
CRY ME, 2009, 3:00
Oasis in the Desert, 2010, 5:00
PARNASUS, 2011, 10:33
VIRUS, 2012, 5:00
WOMBS, 2012, 6:00
White Sugar, 2013, 13:00″
TOUCHLESS, 2014, 4:43
DADALOOP, 2015, 10:00
The Burning, 2016, 8:00
Skinned, 2018, 7:24
“Cry Me” is a radiography of the soul. As a woman, I reveal myself through videoart, playing with a tv display that is like an uterus where my secret “avatar” lives and sings. The video was inspired somehow by the visceral and visionary paintings of Frida Kahlo. The artwork in the display was originally a video shot with a dv camera and then manipulated into photoshop frame-by-frame, as a digitally painted animation.
The piece was performed late at night, in Tor Bella Monaca, a very depressed neighborhood in Rome, Italy. In all that desolation and dirt, I’m a crazy lady trying to reach my little spot of peace and warmth. And even if I’m finally resting under the orange lights of an artificial sun, I’m still all alone in the dark. Because in every desert there is a little oasis and in every oasis a little desert.
PARNASUS, 2011, 10:33
Parnasus is a video that tells a dream. And like all dreams, it comes from a small image nested in the mind. The image is a marble statue white as snow. I’ve never been driven by the fantasy of Winckelmann that still subdues our imagination. All that white marble disorients me. I feel lost, I need color spots as if they were signs in a map. A misunderstanding, that of Winckelmann, that becomes the metaphor for an even deeper and more dangerous mistake: the illusion that the past, crystallized into a kind of noble and abstract projection, it is always better than us, it is always perfect. So in my dream I return to the statues the color denied. The color erased by the passage of time as you cancel the losers of history and forget the evils of the world. I return the blood to the ancient statues, and the ferocity and the violence that always pervade human history, in an infinite loop of death and delusion.
An absolute and unbearable violence that with their unreal perfection those white icons had perhaps to exorcise.
A dream that serves to abstract from the dream, to return to talk about the real world.
VIRUS, 2012, 5:00
A video on the obsessive manipulation of my own image, which becomes a metaphor for the general confusion between real and virtual of the “Société du spectacle” prefigured by Guy Debord. The digital culture and its tools become a self-destructive virus. I could work on the face of Osama Bin Laden, but the fake photo-montage spread by the media as proof of his death is already an unattainable work of art . I then brought the concept within myself, in the heart of my “feminine” self-destructiveness, where the pen of the tablet becomes an “augmented” surgical scalpel deep into the void.
WOMBS, 2012, 6:00
How do you see yourself in the mirror? We do not ever see how others see us, we do not see how we really are. Wombs is some sort of dream about femininity. A woman meets her golem, a piece of clay without features, to be fashioned at will. The golem is a double of the woman, but an amorphous double, a newborn entity still sealed in its purity and fierce innocence. A deity (maybe an evil one) who is daughter and mother at the same time, in whose womb the woman hides to find peace.
White Sugar, 2013, 13:00″
WHITE SUGAR is a surreal film that narratively and graphically elaborates archival material in the public domain. I selected this material in the course of careful research. I focused in particular on the female figure that is ubiquitous within this linguistic universe, as a sort of granite spokesman of a specific cultural model she apparently adheres without shadows and without uncertainty. A universe that has a very precise historical flavor and that, for some sort of magical projection in space and time, seems to actually tell our time. I’ve isolated these female figurines, literally cutting them out of their context as paper dolls, and then I reassembled them into a new digital space made in 3d. In this transfer the “dolls” lose their connection not only with the narrative context but also the spatial structure in which they “lived” originally, assuming new meanings that crack their role as ambassadors of a granitic and dominant culture. The video revolves around the spooky theme of hypnosis and lucid dreaming, as a representation of western cultural model that is “white sugar”, an artificial and addictive chemical pleasure, altering taste and perception. The graphics are best with anaglyph glasses.
TOUCHLESS, 2014, 4:43
I thought of telling the sense of touch, but with his absence or with its contemporary surrogate: the scarcity of physical contact due to hypertrophic growth of virtual liaisons in social networks, the culture of the avatar, the chaos of magmatic and stratified information and communication between individuals. Thus the scarcity of physical contact that leads to the recognition of the “other” results in a technology that is detached from the body and turns it into cold and solipsistic avatar. In a world where we are almost afraid of physical contact we use the screens of our smartphones and tablets to access the relationship. Is the touch screen the membrane that filters a world that frightens us?
DADALOOP, 2015, 10:00
A dadaist ratatouille of images in which food becomes a dream – or nightmare – and the reflection of schizophrenic diets in the claustrophobic frame of a self-portrait.
For perfect view please wear 3d anaglyph glasses.
“The burning” is a video inspired by the recent disturbing political events in America, that gave birth to a series of images in my mind. These images revolve around the idea of obliteration; the obliteration of the past, of the human progress, of a path that seemed established, of values that seemed not negotiable. But everything is burned in one night, in a bonfire that devoured even our disbelief, leaving us dismayed. With hindsight this was all too predictable, the signals were left on our way to be interpreted: globalization, the economic crisis, the moral and material impoverishment of the middle class, the progressive disintegration of society, are spreading throughout the West the virus of obliteration. A metaphorical patina of black paint that blinds, devours and deletes.
Starting from a collage, which re-elaborates and recomposes elements and images from classic portraits of the Renaissance and pictorial romanticism, I create two prints on canvas that are displayed next to each other. Thanks to an augmented reality app, once the diptych is framed with a mobile phone or tablet, the two images magically come alive and begin to interact. The elements move, coming out of the canvas, telling a story that invades the surrounding exhibition space, creating a dense dialogue that simulates a poetic reading out of time and space. The reader on one side, and the musician next to her, recite the magnificent passage from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet celebrating the beauty and ferocity of Nature. While the animation slowly destroys the serene, sunny and idyllic atmosphere of the Renaissance landscape, making us fall into a world invaded by waste and devoured by flames.
Born in Perugia. Francesca moved to Milano in 1998 after her brief philosophy studies in Perugia. She graduated the school of acting ‘Teatro Arsenale’ as an actress and shortly thereafter attended the ‘Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera’, graduating magna cum laude as a scenographer.
While she was attending school, she worked on stage as an actress with Teatro Arsenale’s company and participated in countless shows (‘Jeux de massacre’ by E. Ionesco, ‘il berretto a sonagli’ by L. Pirandello, ‘Pulp’ by C. Bukowsky, ‘L’eglise’ by L. F. Celine etc..). For her dissertation she decided to shoot a documentary about a famous nyc photographer : Andres Serrano. Since that moment she decided to completely change her life and dedicate herself completely to video art. Her research is aimed on gender- and socio-political issues.
Her works are projected in different national and international festivals.
‘All my soul searching leads me to the same end, one word: urgency.
This is what leads to communication and to the media I have chosen: video and body.
Through them I try to be the vehicle for emotions, to bring the spectator to a destination I prearrange, filtered by their own experiences of life.
After all ‘life is arts’ fault’ (Pierre Restany)’.
Participant in
CologneOFF IX – 9th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2013
artvideoKOELN – audiovisual experiences 2015
The Wake Up! Memorial 2017
The Refugee Memorial 2017
The W:OW Project 2018
The LFBT Folm Collection 2020
Francesca Lolli is participating in total in about 20 videoart programs curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne shown together with networking partners all over the world.
Francesca Lolli and Ignazio Fresu curated by Roberto Ronca – organization Debora Salardi – April 8 * May 8, 2022
Campana dei Caduti – Rovereto (TN) – Italy – An AIAPI Event | IAA / AIAPI UNESCO Official Partner
Interview – 10 questions
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne interviews Francesca Lolli – 30 May 2022
1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background
I am an Italian Perugia-born director and performance artist who currently live and work between Milano and Perugia. After graduating at ‘Teatro Arsenale’ as an actress I attended the ‘Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera’, graduating as a scenographer. My research is focused into performance, video art and experimental film. My work is aimed on gender and socio-political issues mainly linked to geopolitical problems related with women.
All my soul searching leads me to the same end, one word: urgency.The urgency for me to express my thoughts and ideas through video and body.
Through these mediums I try to be the vehicle for emotions, to bring the spectator to a destination I prearrange, filtered by their own experiences of life.
My artwork takes a critical view of social, political and cultural issues, it pretends to be a sublimation of the weaknesses of contemporary man, of his fears, of his intimate obsessions.
2. When, how and why started you filming
I started shooting for my degree thesis. Until then I had never felt this need. For the thesis I decided to make a documentary about a famous New York photographer: Andres Serrano. Someone had recently given me a small handycam, I started with that. After shooting 8 hours of material I found myself in the position of having to edit it… what to do? I slowly learned how to edit and I spent whole nights on the frames! I haven’t been able to stop since then.
3.What kind of subjects have your videos/films?
I mainly deal with everything related to gender, stereotypes related to it, the condition of women in contemporary society, women’s rights (which are nothing but rights of the whole society).
The universe I try to portray is inhabited by creatures who experience life: a universe seen, lived and acted upon by women who consequently require me to investigate gender stereotypes and violence.
The social responsibility that I feel inherent in my work leads me to speak sincerely about what, being a woman, I feel familiar, trying, through the themes I have analyzed, to move from the individual to the universal.
The women I paint are strong archetypal figures, not always victorious, tired of being absorbed in the rhetoric of warriors, no longer compliant with the expectations loaded on their shoulders, often overwhelmed and defeated by a system that designs them as a fragile and submissive category.
With my works I tackle the issues of the social body (its use and abuse), freedom of expression, civil rights, equality.
4. How do you develop your videos/films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?
At first, as a self-taught person, I let myself be carried away by what I felt. I didn’t have a specific style in mind, a particular way of shooting. I have always taken great care of the shot but I have never questioned whether it was “right” or “wrong”. It is the big picture that you must always have in mind: things are never right or wrong but they work or they don’t work.
After a few years I attended a film directing school in Rome. There I learned the classical grammar of cinema. A very important tool if you then want to subvert it! To break the rules you must first know them.
5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.
For years I have worked with a Sony, a fantastic camera that recorded on minidv. I then bought a Panasonic AGAF101, a camera that still keeps me company but that I have to decide to leave soon, it is starting to get old!
In the course of my experience I have happened to work with several video cameras that are not mine and I have always found myself very well.
6. What are the chances of new media for the genre videos/films in general and you personally?
Mine is a rather pessimistic view about my kind of work: we live in a historical moment in which we are submerged by moving images and it is difficult, precisely for this reason, to focus our attention on them. In addition, the work I do is experimental, it does not wink and it does not seek consent. You have to love the genre to come across it. Having said that I am not discouraged and I continue to look at the world through my gaze, trying to transport it in the form of moving images.
7. How do you finance your films?
It depends, sometimes they are self-financed other times they are commissioned.
8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team? if you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?
I have experienced both situations and they are obviously two very different ways of working. I’m used to work alone, to think about the project and to realize it in all of its phases: the idea, the production, the work with the actors, the video and audio post production. Over the years I have met and collaborated with various professional figures, some of which have remained in my professional and social life. Working alone or in a team is very different. Working in harmony with people I know and with whom I have built a relationship of esteem is much better.
9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?
It depends on the periods of my life. I am a very curious person and I never stop studying, reading, watching all kinds of films. There are languages that are more suited to me but I look at things that are apparently far from my gaze willingly and with interest. However, there are directors and artists who represent a milestone for all my research, who have influenced me and who continue to be a great source of inspiration: David Lynch, Cristian Mungiu, Vito Acconci, Tina Modotti, Gina Pane just to name a few.
10. What are your future plans or dreams as a film/video maker?
One of my dreams is to be able to bring experimentation to everyone. Find the ways to make it accessible to a growing audience. And of course to continue working for a very long time to come!
Francesca Lolli
Video Performance
10 videos
Abaddon, 2013, 04:30
The last Day of Humanity, 2014, 01:50
Where are gone the fireflies (Dove sono finite le lucciole), 2014, 01:29
The Lovers, 2015, 02:53
The Dying Lilium, 2016, 03:27
No Country For Everyone / Non è un Paese per Tutti, 2016, 01:52
Ode for my Funeral, 2013/2017, 02:38
Dolorosa Mater, 2017, 03:14
Atonement– Espiazione, 2018, 05:11
HR+, 2020, 03:34
The title of the video (Abaddon, from the Hebrew ‘abad’, which means ‘to send to perdition’) takes its name from the King of the army of locusts mentioned in the Apocalypse of John (chapter 9, verse 11) that comes to haunt men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
The idea is that of a’ military exterminator’ formed by human beings theat, with their will to impose themselves on the other people, are able to modify and destroy their habitat and everything around them.
The last day of humanity is a metaphor about the extinction of the human race, which will happen when the last woman on heart wil be buried at the hand of men.
Where are gone the fireflies (Dove sono finite le lucciole), 2014, 01:29
The humanity has to put an end to the war, or the war will put an end to humanity. (John Fitzgerald Kennedy)
The video performance talks about the destabilization occurring when we allow external forces to exert power over us, up to the extreme consequence of complete disorientation (“I don’t remember my
name”)
“The Dying Lilium” is a video performance that directs its research towards the delicate relationship between Mankind and Nature, in an attempt to highlight how desire for possession and exploitation is inherent in our “evolved” mentality, with consequent damaging of the fragile balance that surround us.
In the Video, humanity is immersed in perfect symbiosis with Nature from which it draws nourishment (represented here by a Woman, multicultural archetype of the generating force of life on earth); however, this precarious balance breaks when mankind becomes aware of the origin of its sustenance and moved by greed, it clings to it in a fatal grip.
It is our judgment, released from the primary survival instincts, that has the ability to so radically influence the destiny of our planet, burdening us with a responsibility from which we cannot withdraw.
The video is a metaphor of the current historical situation; it is a transposition through images of a new form of slavery: that of human trafficking. In a world where a dangerous social illiteracy dominates, one cannot absolutely ignore the story of the “here and now”.
the video performance consists of several works shot between 2013 and 2017 and it is meant to be a sort of spiritual testament.
– Silence is often the manifestation of an external limitation; a physical, psychological, and social imposition that the artist chooses to show by focusing on the figure of the woman, forced by her sexual identity to a constant struggle for her own social and expressive affirmation.
Espiazione is a video performance on the saving value of repentance.
nvasive carcinomas are defined HR positive if they have many receptors for female hormones. Overall, about 70% of breast cancer cases are hormone responsive. This means that one of the therapies is
the hormonal one, full of side effects. There is little or no mention of some of these effects (especially those inherent in the sexual sphere): about one in four women with breast cancer is not yet in menopause at the time of diagnosis. “62 percent of patients of childbearing age at the time of surgery complain of a sharp decline in sexual desire, a wound in
the image of themselves (due to the breast surgery that makes women feel often diminished in their beauty and desirability), the presence of
severe menopausal symptoms, lubrication difficulties with vaginal dryness and pain in intercourse, difficulty or inability to orgasm due to pain, sexual dissatisfaction – says Brandes -. However, the interested party often remain silent out of modesty. Doctors need to be more willing to talk about sexuality with patients as well: it has been documented that only 15% of breast operated women are able to deal with sexual problemswith their doctor and 62% talk about it openly with their partner.
Francesca Leoni Video artist/ Performer, was born in Italy but grew up in Brazil. After high school she moved to the US where she graduated in Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. During college she started her first Theatre and performance studies being a part of theatre productions and short films. Back in Italy she started working with video productions and kept on studying theatre and performance. Putting together video and performance was always her objective. This is why she created with Davide Mastrangelo a video performance project Con.Tatto
Participant in
CologneOFF VIII – 8th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2012
CologneOFF X – 10th Cologne International Videoart Festival 2014
artvideoKOELN – audiovisual experiences 2015
The W:OW Project 2019
Francesca Leoni is participating in total in about 10 videoart programs curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne shown together with networking partners all over the world.
Francesca Leoni
Video Performance
6 videos
In-Sanity, 2012, 3:55
D (mov#2), 2013, 3:15
Nod(Us), 2013, 2:30
Ego- Crazia ( Chapter 1), 2016, 8’20”
MeMini, 2016 , 3:53
Disambigua, 2020, 15:50
A place where mental patiens were “cured” by doctors that often had “spartan” methods. I heard many things about the “Osservanza” mental Hospital in the city of Imola and many of them were abut tortures on patiens. This video is about showing the structure that is now abandoned and is a performance about the place, the people that once lived there, their suffering and their search for freedom.
Water, air , fire, earth. Those are the fourth elements of nature, but also the elements we are made off. D. is the 4th letter of the alphabet. “D” as destiny, as desire, as different, as donna (woman in Italian). This is a video performance of a woman confronting herself with the 4 elements interpreted as: water (feelings), earth (memories), wind ( society), fire (passion). This is a symbolic performance of how experiences and society that leave marks on her body and soul in different ways. The red line, a constant in most of my performances represents the blood, the energy, the ties with other people, an energy that needs to explored in order to achieve transformation.
This works is about memory and relations that each one of us traces during a life. Inspired by the myth of Ariadne and the skein of thread that helped her coming out of the labirynth, the performer extends a red wire through corridors of and abandoned garage. The nods are a representation of the relationships we tie during life experience.
The dynamics and search of power inside oneself and inside society. What pushes someone in the search of personal and social power and how it transform human beings.
Remembering is part of the human being and makes us what we are. Remembering means being and belonging, it doesn’t mean living in the past but being aware that the present is shaped by memories and vice versa. In this work I wanted to represent the memory as a physical and performative act, connecting at, the same time, with a place that was once linked to childhood but is now waiting for a new function. The memory is not always linear, since its an emotional path, it often jumps, stops and comes back. The questions we ask ourselves are: What remains? What is left out? In this path I decided to be accompanied by the music of Luca Maria Baldini who was able to interpret with his sensitivity, a journey made of repetitions and silences, but also of melodies and echoes.
A nurse, two doctors, 4 bodies and a waiter, characters connected through memories, and reality, conscious and unconscious, past and present
Francesca Leoni & Davide Mastrangelo
CON.TATTO is an artistic group composed by Francesca Leoni and Davide Mastrangelo, both video artist and performers. The group was created in June 2011 to respond the artistic needs and sensibilities of both components. In only one year the group created several videos that are now travelling in different international festivals.
Their exploration focus on the human condition in contemporary societies through various perspectives. Most relevant to their works is the topic of man-woman relationship in multiple social dimensions: romantic relationships, peoples’ customs and traditions, ideological and religious manipulation. They offer symbolic exempla of these conditions through their performative “tableau”. Leoni & Mastrangelo is presently included in international festivals and events. Their new works are distributed by Visualcontainer in Italy and by VIVO Media Arts Centre in Canada.
Video Performance
5 videos
INS(h)IDE, 2011, 3:00
Fr- Agile, 2012, 3:58
Person-A, 2013, 4:20
In-Difference, 2013, 2:46
W(t)OMB, 2012, 5:00
This video comes from a performative research of the inner self. We carry inside different feelings and different personalities that are often in contrast with each other. With a symbolic performance I created, visually, this inner struggle that each one of us try to hide from the external world.
Directed and Performed by Francesca Leoni ( Con.Tatto video performance art) / Light designer: Emiliano Camporesi / Music: Alessandro Fabbri, vanni Crociani / Collaboration and Vox: Davide Mastrangelo / Production: Con.Tatto video performance art
The word Fragile contains inside itself the word Agile. This means that inside the state of fragility, that is a characteristic of the human being. Inside each person, even in a state of fragility or imprisonment , there is a strong need and aim for freedom and action. The video Fr- agile is a reflection of this need. A dream of freedom of an imprisoned body.
In Latin the word “Persona” represents the actors mask and the character the he interprets. This work is about the mask that each on of us wears in life in order to relate to others. Its about searching the truth in the other person. The only way to find that truth is to go over the mask. The act of pealing the mask off is a symbolic performance executed by the artistic group Con.Tatto (Leoni & Mastrangelo) in the search of the others true self
Although TV and internet give us the possibility to see images from all over the world and learn in just a few moments what is happening in other places, we are becoming indifferent. Contemporary society is creating self- centered people who see but really don’t care, who knows but doesn’t make anything abut it. In this video performane the Con.Tatto group reflected on theis situation with a special attention to the facts that filling the news paper news: wars, woman’s conditions and the lack of vision of the ones who are leading the nations of the world.
The world is the big frame where everything grows. In a world that is destroyed an abandoned church, Symbol of a society and a religion that was not able to give answers, a new life is re birthing. Humans or maybe phantoms are come up from a tomb that becomes womb. The new birth comes from the water, from the colour white, signs of a purity and a page that yet has to be written. The group Con.Tatto works with the concept of video performance which means that the video contains a physical performance that interacts with the environment and the symbols.
Davide Mastrangelo (1989, Eboli) is an Italian FIlmmaker (film director and video artist). He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna where he did a degree in Photography, Cinema and Television.
His degree paper (“Cross-breeding visions”) focused on the cross-breeding of cinema and video art.
Both his studies and his work focused on exploring the intermedial potential of experimental audiovisual devices.
In June 2011 a collaboration with video artist and performer Francesca Leoni led to the birth of Leoni & Mastrangelo. Their works were selected by international video art and film festivals.
Co-artistic director Ibrida Festival intermedia arts of 2016. Davide Mastrangelo is currently working on exploring new cross-breeding areas in the use of cinema and video art.
The show “The 3 Francesca’s (+)” is a collaboration / networked action between
THe New Museum od Networked Art,
the curator Wilfried Agricola de Cologne (Cologne/Germany) and the artists Francesca Fini, Francesca Lolli and Francesca Leoni / Davide Mastrangelo
@ Alphabet Art Centre.
All texts, images and videos © by the artists/authors/curator or owners.
The Online/Offline Show – “The 3 Francesca’s (+)”, its concept, design and work out © 2022 by Agricola de Cologne/The New Museum of Networked Art.
