In the folds of the story. Videograms of a revolution by Harun Farocki. A talk by Francesco Restuccia in conversation with Carla Subrizi. 21.12.2022, 6.30 pm. Via del Vascello 35, 00152 Rome.

On the 21^st of December 2022, Fondazione Baruchello invites Francesco Restuccia and Carla Subrizi to a conversation about the film Videograms of a revolution by Harun Farocki, made in collaboration with Andrei Ujică (1992). The film will also be featured at the Fondazione accompanying the exhibition “Aprire la storia” from the 12^th to the 23^rd of December, open until the 24^th of February, 2023.

The meeting will introducethe film and will dwell on the themes of critical editing, as proposed by Farocki. Videograms of a revolution deals with the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s communist regime, and uses amateur footage, foreign and local news reports, and images of  the Bucharest TV studio occupied by protesters. Different points of view, which are as numerous as the people who lived through those times, are interwoven with the official news reports documenting the events of the revolution up to its epilogue. In this way, the artist proposes an alternative and layered narration of the facts that brings into question how mass media communicates with the public and, more generally, how the memory of historical facts are constructed through multiple sources.

“Aprire la storia” is an exhibition that intends to reflect on the adjacencies between the mass media universe of communication as proposed by a daily newspaper, and the reflection that artists of different backgrounds and training have dedicated to history. Alongside the narration of facts and contexts from the daily newspaper “la Repubblica,” a series of artists’ films have been selected through which the roots of mass media’s construction of facts are investigated, the gaps and censorships in the narrative are addressed, parallel stories are implemented that do not neglect memory and affection, and the cultural systems underlying the narration of history are subjected to a critical gaze.

The enormous archive of a newspaper (from the first issue in 1976 to 2010 and then, through a selection, to the present day) set up in the spaces of Fondazione Baruchello, presents the course of history in the fragmentary and immediate nature of journalistic communication; the films, in a dedicated projection space, constitute the opening of a perspective that, with different points of view, problematize the same facts, opening up new ways of reading history.

BIO

Francesco Restuccia is a research fellow at La Sapienza – University of Rome. His main interests include the history of aesthetics, media theory and the philosophy of technique. He is an associate member of the research group AN-ICON – History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images, and author of a monograph entitled Il contrattacco delle immagini. Technique, media, idolatry starting with Vilém Flusser (Meltemi, Milan 2021).

PROGRAMMING

28.11 – 09.12.2022
Antoni Muntadas – On Translation: Fear / Miedo | 2005, DVD, 30’27”, color, sound, subtitles

12.12 – 23.12.2022
Harun Farocki – Videograms of a Revolution | 1992, found footage, 106′, color, sound, subtitles

9.1 – 13.1.2023
Chantal Akerman – D’Est | 1993, 16 mm, 111′, color, sound

16.1 – 20.1.2023
Rogelio López Cuenca – Calor Humano | 2008, digital video, 3’38”, b/w, sound
Rogelio López Cuenca and Elo Vega – à Valparaiso 1963-2013 | 2013, video, 22’48’’, b/W, sound

23.1 – 27.1.2023
Gianfranco Baruchello – In su | 2001, VHS, 5′, color, sound
Gianfranco Baruchello – Ars memoriae | 2009, HDV, 21′, color, sound

30.1 – 03.2.2023
Fiamma Montezemolo – Traces | 2012, digital video, 20’28”, color, sound

6.2 – 10.2.2023
Dora García – Love with Obstacles | 2020, video, 60′, color, sound, subtitles

13.2 – 17.2.2023
Cesare Pietroiusti – Pensiero unico | 2003, video, 5’41”, color, sound

20.2 – 24.2.2023
Carlo Gabriele Tribbioli and Federico Lodoli – Fragment 53 | 2015, HD, 71′, color, stereo

“Aprire la storia” 20.10.2022 – 24.02.2023.

We would like to thank Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki Gbr, Berlin.

This exhibition was created with the contribution of Regione Lazio, Direzione Cultura e Lazio Creativo, Area Servizi Culturali e Promozione della Lettura, L.R. n. 24/2019, Piano 2022.

“Aprire la storia” received the patronage of the Dipartimento di Storia Antropologia Religioni Arte
Spettacolo of Sapienza University in Rome.