2003

The rhythm of the video installation Io sono, tu sei, egli è (I am, you are, he is), 2003, is made up of a sort of false movement, or rather the composite impression of a series of movements. The artist has filmed the movements of a tram from a fixed position, thus transforming the windows into a device that renders the interior transparent; elaborating it at the same time into a “hall of mirrors”, reflections and superimposed images. In this way, the movement of someone from A to B takes on the nature of a journey, and reflects the existential condition of being ‘on board’, which perfectly corresponds to the continuous boundary between being inside and outside revealed by the vehicle and its passengers. The video runs from left to right, exhibiting, investigating, taking its time before finally being swallowed up, as if behind its own final curtain, by the vehicles various fixtures and fittings: jambs, automatic folding doors, buttons. The range of gestures and behaviour that we witness, emerge from a state of absorption.

Some of the passengers are absorbed, others completely engrossed in whatever it is they’re doing whether it be reading, talking, or cuddling. Together with peeking, we can eavesdrop to pick up the thoughts of the passengers. The accompanying sound, which can be heard on headphones, creates a kind of mental voice and is, therefore, a fitting choice to this work. Here, the fragments of the thoughts of others reach us as a series of layers held together by the narration, gathered together just like in the famous scene in The Sky Over Berlin by Wim Wenders. “My attention does a summersault, and my attention gets lost in one single point, a tiny point that seems to contain what I’m looking for”.

Giorgina Bertolino