Images from the end of semester exhibition (December 2014)
Final Project Statement:
Connectome: the circuit system in our brain, the map of connections between our neurons.
The way we connect our neurons determines our way of thinking, our feelings, and our mood; it decides how to wire this circuit of connection that determines how we can change our life.
What moves people, how they connect themselves to others, and how they build and develop connections is important because we are not islands, and connections impact on our minds, bodies and society.
I want to present three works on this theme:
One on the Mind: an abstract geometrical painting called “associative think” that represents the possibility to interlace different points of view in a complex shape.
One on the Body: a sculpture in glass of my face and of my ears on top of a pile of destroyed glass, the distraction a of a body broken into pieces everywhere. The viewer can take a piece of me with him like a souvenir of our connection.
One on Feelings: an installation where I project a web site, http://planefinder.net, where it is possible to check how many airplanes we have flying above ours heads. We can understand the whereabouts that individuals move themselves and how much petrol we spend for it. Hopefully in the future instead of abusing technology we can spend our time to develop telepathic capacities of connections.
Dec 9 2014: Work in progress to transform myself into pieces of glass:
Snapshots from the Open Studio event Nov 14 2014 at the Siena Art Institute:
body like a territory
I started to think about the Body in the space where we live, not our intimate spaces but the space where we move and influence ourselves. I feel that in the contemporary time we compress the space, for it is more easy to travel around the world and this possibility puts our bodies in different countries where we can find the potential infinite of influence. This way of life divides ourselves in a multitude of relations and connections that forces us to multiply our image in a virtual space to conserve this connection.
(Statement for project “Body like a Territory” created in the context of the Digital Multimedia and Installation course and displayed as part of the Open Studio event at the Siena Art Institute Nov 14 2014)
body like from eleonora rotolo on Vimeo.
Finalized Structures for the collaborative installation “Today is Tomorrow: The Future of Colle” in the Archeological Museum of Colle di Val d’Elsa:
Per costruire il futuro di Colle Val d’Elsa mi sono fatta guidare dalle persone che vivono e lavorano in questa cittadina. Molte volte mi sono recata ad intervistarli per tentare di comprendere quale fosse la loro visione di un possibile futuro. Nei miei colloqui ho scoperto che la normale utenza della biblioteca di Colle è in percentuale quasi uguale a quella di Siena, pur non essendo Colle una città universitaria o una città estesa quanto Siena. Sono rimasta molto colpita da questo aspetto che mi ha spinto a dedicarmi alla costruzione di una biblioteca più ampia.
Un altro aspetto che ho trovato interessante nella mia ricerca è stato il desiderio per i cittadini di Colle di sviluppare la loro città conservando la loro eredità e la loro tradizione. Così ho deciso di situare la biblioteca in un edificio preesistente, rimodernandolo attraverso l’aggiunta di un piano interamente in vetro, per far rivivere la tradizione della produzione del vetro di Colle, oltre ciò per riportare alla luce la tradizione della produzione della carta, ho deciso di trasformare la cartiera in una scuola professionale per l’editoria.
Spero che la mia utopica visione possa contribuire ad una riqualifica della città per mezzo della diffusione e dello sviluppo della cultura. I miei edifici collegati costituiscono un centro per la libera circolazione della conoscenza in quanto sono convinta che attraverso la cultura si possono abbattere molte barriere e facendola circolare liberamente vi è anche la possibilità di smussare il divario tra ricchezza e povertà.
My personal steps to build the future of Colle are indicated from the history of the people that live or work there. I’ve been to colle val d’elsa several times and spoke as well as interviewed people who live in this town, and after several personal reflections on my interviews with them, I decided to dedicate myself to building a larger library for Colle Val d’Elsa. I found out that the current user has a percentage that is almost equal to that of Siena, plus Colle is not a university town or city extended such as Siena. I was very impressed with this aspect of Colle. Another connection that I found interesting in my research was the desire for the people of Cole to maintain and develop their city somehow as well as their heritage and tradition. So I decided to revive the tradition of the manufacturing of paper by transforming a paper workshop into a vocational school for publishing. My vision I hope will contribute to Colle’s social balance by means of dissemination, development of culture, and creation by connecting these two buildings (the paper workshop and the library) as a center for the promotion of the free flow of knowledge. because I’m convinced that through knowledge we can break down many barriers.
Oct 29, 2014: Building maquettes for “Today is Tomorrow” collaborative installation
For me, the ORIENTamenti project is a good opportunity to know and work in collaboration with people from different coutries, cultures and backround; this for me is something that allows me to develop my artistic sensibilities.
Also in this project, thanks to the collaboration with instructors Ada Cattaneo and Lisa Nonken, I have had a chance to discover and study a lot of interesting things.
My personal steps to build the future of Colle are indicated from the history of the people that live or work there. I’ve been to colle val d’elsa several times and spoke as well as interviewed people who live in this town, and after several personal reflections on my interviews with them, I decided to dedicate myself to building a larger library for Colle Val d’Elsa. I found out that the current user has a percentage that is almost equal to that of Siena, plus Colle is not a university town or city extended such as Siena. I was very impressed with this aspect of Colle. Another connection that I found interesting in my research was the desire for the people of Cole to maintain and develop their city somehow as well as their heritage and tradition. So I decided to revive the tradition of the manufacturing of paper by transforming a paper workshop into a vocational school for publishing. My vision I hope will contribute to Colle’s social balance by means of dissemination, development of culture, and creation by connecting these two buildings (the paper workshop and the library) as a center for the promotion of the free flow of knowledge. because I’m convinced that through knowledge we can break down many barriers.
Images of work-in-progress, collaborative installation “Today is Tomorrow: The Future of Colle:”
Oct 20, 2014: Fifth Reading Response:
In the contemporary era where the distances are much shorter and many of our desires to discover the area can be accommodated, we end up visiting countless areas in a short time but not really being able to feel and discover nothing. We can not live “the nature and the sensation of desire”, but only to satisfy it and pretend as if we were not quite able to enjoy of expectation that separates us from the object of desire and lived it just as intolerable, it is as if we were trapped in the desire to reach the goal without being able to enjoy the journey that separates us from it, and so the territories that surround us disappear, the only thing count the goals to be achieved. Rebecca Solnit’s words have changed my view of territory especially with regard to the need to live a territory for discover it. Surely the empirical esperanza is needed to fully understand a territory, but so too is the desire it because it is thanks to what we are willing to wait and consider everything that composes and surrounds it.
Oct 13, 2014: Project Statement “Today is Tomorrow: The Future of Colle”
Sept 23, 2014: Third Reading Response:
What I’m interested in working with Wafa is certainly a reflection of the future, the perception of ourselves and the space that surrounds us. In this project I would like to intervene by making a reflection on individuals, not only on the surrounding scenery, but also on trying to create the glass thumbnails of individuals which I would then like to put in the maquette. To symbolize the fragility of human nature is to consider our life at its base and having endless possibilities that could lead us in very different directions from the present.
Sept 16, 2014: Second Reading Response:
I often find myself reflecting on the aspects of a city while thinking in terms of the Deriva.
The other night, for example, I was in Piazza del Campo thinking about the tower, its shape and its height. The tower is a symbol of power and as a building has no use – it’s there only to demonstrate the power of the city, as a building that can only be admired for its grandeur and for its history. It evokes a sense of dread and submission. From here I began to reflect on the surrounding buildings and how at the time of their construction it was impossibile for them to build balconies. This ban imposed by the authority, of not having outdoor spaces that diminish the public palace, is a clear demonstration of how architecture speak for itself and not to humans.
When thinking about how so many things still seem to go under the restrictions caused by the power and the desire to display wealth, no one seems really interested in the effects on humans. The aesthetics and the functionality of architecture have forgotten their target audience and they only speaks amongst themselves .
Surely Siena known for its ambience has managed to create a creative re-definition of urban areas. Citizens are able to take advantage of the squares and public spaces in a social way and these spaces are able to change during the dinners of the contrade or street parties. In fact, in the organizations of the contrade I am reminded of the concepts of the Situationists and the Psycogeografia, since they create situations that are always different and challenging. They change the appearance to the districts during the celebrations and prove themselves to be very moldable and ingenious depending on the events organized. Maybe defining these districts as perfectly aligned with the Situationists is an exaggeration, but it certainly should be recognized in the tradition of these contrade are capable of creating sociality through care and attention of their territory.
In regards to the ideas of de Certeau I’m a bit critical as I’m mindful of the fact that “any theoretical system that tries to measure… will inevitably exclude as much as it reveals” but this is not mean that we cannot find a common point in the story. Every story needs to be expressed and analyzed to find a good way to continue it.
I think that we spend a lot of time being bombarded by the media of stories that they choose to tell us and so many times we also to try to find a story that interests us to create our own spatial practice. So for me it’s so useful to speak about our travel stories and try to create a theorical system that is open and full of many different stories.
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Sept 9, 2014: First Reading Response:
Fortunately I travel often out of curiosity and research, but I am convinced that the biggest boundary I have ever crossed is myself. After many encounters with psycological staff members, I have been able to go beyond my identity, trying to break down my ego in an attempt to meet and really sympathise and understand other people rather than speculate them. In my career I have found that the construction of identity and territorial psychology is essential, but once addressed it is just as essential to project beyond this building to try to get as close as possible to others because our border is the skin, but if you don’t have human contact you wouldn’t perceive anything, not even our substance. As James says Bradburne boundaries “are where we meet the Other and each other, to discover values more resilient then the contingent facts of our birthplace and native language” and we must be open to this.
Personally I do not feel connected to a specific territory because, in early childhood, I often changed the city that I lived in. And moreover, I am closely linked to the phrase “we are the universe and the universe is within us” and I feel some how interconnected to each territory rather than one specifically.
I think that an area is where we live concretely and abstractly, in the sense that for me the land doesn’t need to be a physical place, but it can also be a mental fact of our knowledge, feelings and emotions. And a little ‘as if we were in our territory. On the other hand, they are aware of the fact that this view tends to diminish the physical territories, cultivating less traditions and slowly losing its identity. With the globalization. the cities are populated more and more as “non-places”, so maybe it would be better to define the territory as the union of our abstract sensations rather than the concrete ones provided to us by the place in which we live, given the history and tradition of that specific place.
Born in 1988 in Villaricca in the province of Naples, currently Eleonora lives in Carrara where she graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In her work she explores the hidden sides by the individual in trying to expose what lies behind the appearance of quotidian life.
Her attempt is to symbolize the hidden process it in conversation and in collaboration with others, where the construction work becomes an excuse to address the issues that involve disturbance in the lives of everyone.
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