Napolecitta or the fractal virtues of Detail
by Roland Quelven
Combinations of numbers, maps, writings, paintings and masterpieces of Art history digitally assembled and devoted to an encyclopaedical world named Napolecitta. All this seen through the prism of the Detail, whether iconic or pictorial, it produces the same effect: an invitation to travel inside.
I started this project eleven years ago through paintings devoted to a description of an ancient imaginary city named Napolecitta, fusing Napoli and Cinecitta. For the past year, this city has become an encyclopedic world. At first with a website napolecitta.com including flash animations and then with quicktime videos.
On Detail
'Nous isolons de la complexité immense du réel quelques éléments, nous créons le plus souvent, une série en extrayant ces éléments-là de cette immense complexité' Christian Dotremont.
'We isolate some elements from the immense complexity of the real, often we create series by extracting those elements from this immense complexity' Christian Dotremont.
The reality concentrates as the fragment stands out… seeing through the prism of the Detail, whether iconic or pictorial, produces always the same effect: an invitation to travel inside.
On Lists
'The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries.'
Napolecitta's project: combinations of numbers, maps, writings, paintings and masterpieces of Art history digitally assembled and devoted to an encyclopaedical world named Napolecitta. All this seen through the prism of the Detail, whether iconic or pictorial, it produces the same effect: invite to travel inside.
The use of numbers in Art History has become a tradition. ( Jasper Johns, Ryoji Ikeda, Peter Greenaway…) I conceive this labelling, symbolically, as the expression of a new instance of the Vanity.
85 | Albert meets Duchenne from Roland Quelven
Napolecitta ottantacinque | Albert Londe & Duchenne de Boulogne.
Music by Michael Nyman | Angelfish decay
wonderfully played by Branka Parlić (piano) and Natasha Vidacic (violin).
9th of july 2008 synagogue, novi sad, Serbia.
Branka Parlić's
Most of my videowork are numbered assembling a register, an imaginary official record.
42 for 'la Chambre de Johannes', 92 for 'La Chambre de Peter John", 91 for 'La Chambre de Théodore", 67 for 'La Chambre de Raphaël', 43 for 'La chambre de Maya D.' 11 for 'The Cardinal and the W.' 88 for 'La Chambre d'Etienne-Jules'... This imaginary official record is a list, a digital mapping of this encyclopaedic world named Napolecitta.
"We like list because we don't want to die"
Comments