LECTURES

AFFECTIONS
"An experience is an attempt executed without reserve, given over to the peril of its own lack of foundation and security in this 'object' of which it is not the subject but instead the passion" (JL Nancy, The Experience of Freedom, 1988, Eng. translation 1993)

Trying to pay a tribute to the (un)historical line of independent New American Cinema, a landmark moment which, from the first timid inception in post 2nd WW to the larger influence on European Auteurs' cinema, the present filmic and video selection tries to reflect on the (evident and not so evident) parameters and conventions surrounding the concepts of indipendent film art (and later so called video art), with a specific attention to the question of the boundaries between visual representation and inner reality, and the related aspect of (real and fictional) time. The series of historical film works insert themselves in the exploration (and tentatively definition) of coming of age/ awareness-raising/ self-description, raising further questions about the multiple definitions of filmic art and the limits/ thresholds between real-life situation(s) and performance's own very possibilities, namely the role of Experience.

Francesco Bernardelli
Bernardelli is a contemporary art critic and curator, has been working within the framework of visual arts, time-based media and performance, curating film and video programmes and performance projects. From 1999 until 2005 he was responsible for the video and film screening programmes of Castello di Rivoli - Contemporary Art Museum, often in collaboration with the National Cinema Museum of Torino.

In 2004/05 he co-catalogued the historical video collection of Castello di Rivoli, and in recent years he has been writing about the connection between performance, video art and moving images. His essays have been published by institutions such as MAMbo, Bologna, Papesse Contemporary art center, Siena, Castello di Rivoli and GAM-Modern Art Gallery, Torino, as well as Stedelijk Museum and De Appel, Amsterdam. Recent projects he has curated include 'Split Subjects' (De Appel, A'dam, 2005) and 'Figures of Excess' (Beursschouwburg, Bruxelles, 2006).