THE OPEN IMAGE - TOURING CLUB ARCHIVE
Since its foundation, the Touring Club Italiano has started an archive project in parallel with its initiatives, an active memory building program to guide the present and shape the future. In 1898 photographers and amateurs from every region were involved in an open call -that we are going to renew- to collect, order and transmit documents on post-Risorgimento Italy.
The Touring Archive - in this consists its extraordinary alterity- juxtapose the inventory of materials produced by the association (publications, brochures, gray materials, papers), to a very large collection of documents and images that members, photographers or individual travelers sent to 10 Corso Italia in over a century.
It is one of the first collective archive experiments, a combination of many subjectivities and many ways of being a traveler: from tourism linked to sporting events (and cycling in particular), to flora and fauna observations, from the beautiful profiles of the Italian coasts that Alberto Porro captures from the ships of the Navy, to the snowy peaks of the Andes in the photos of the missionary father De Agostini, passing through the exotic portraits of Antonio Beato and the controversial campaigns in Libya and Albania. Some memorable names and a dust made of many anonymous people, who contribute to the collection perhaps just with a postcard (over 30,000 of them are archived).
What emerges is an imperfect portrait of Italy and many places in the world, through landscapes, bodies, practices and rituals. In the beginning images, at first silent, were mounted in the Touring publications to render the physiognomy of the world, selecting, discarding, rewriting, sometimes forgetting. A careful assembly process, but still partial and biased. How many physiognomies can still emerge from this collection?
ABOUT VIDEO SOUND ART FESTIVAL
Video Sound Art festival aims to find new exhibition spaces for young creatives. The festival born in Milano (IT), focuses on the use of new technologies in the art field, offers a multidisciplinary dialogue ranging from data collection to live performances, from motion graphics to the dance theater. The selected works, not referred to a single creative field, are worthy examples of the contribution of the new digital universe frontiers to the style of young artists. Taking its cue from international experiences, VSA provides visibility to the artistic creations of the new generations by biannual open calls. During three years of activity a network of more than 140 artists has been created; today, they’re part of a laboratory that actively works on new productions and that faces the integration of young artists into the job world.
Event informations
The participation request must be sent by 30 September 2020
The work created may be multimedia – installation, photography, video, engraving, sculpture and performance – or it may be articulated in a research that involves setting up the materials of the Archive (to be assessed if reconstructed or presented in their original version).
The first public exhibition will take place in Milano (IT) at the Cozzi Swimming Pool in November.
Candidates are have to send:
- a link to a video presentation of themselves and the project (maximum 3 minutes);
- a project presentation document containing: title, concept, research methodology (maximum 1000 characters) and graphic material (drawings, images or tables);
- personal data (name, surname, residential address, e-mail, telephone number).
The material, to be sent to the email opencall@videosoundart.com, must not exceed 3 MB