Serena Porrati - Fondazione Antonio Ratti

Serena Porrati
PORTFOLIO Marzo 2012
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Perception of the natural environment is led by cultural, economic and symbolic ideas. I am interested in all
forms of non-human life; wild forms or elements that co-exist, interact or interfere with this mechanism. I consider
them important phenomenon hidden by our contemporary culture, therefore a compelling area of study.
My research if focused on small side aspects and elements of the environment we live in in order to deconstruct
or simply undermine the symbolic ‘orders’ of civilization. I would like to develop “mechanism of vision” able to
generate unconventional ways to distinguish information from physical reality. The overall aim of my research
is to expand or destroy the idea of nature, highlighting the animal in the human and creating multiple suggestions
to re-interpret existence.
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Selected works 2007-2012

INDEX
Patterns of decay and dissolution
Nietzsche in Turin
L’impero del sole
Faccio fatica, a volte a vivere da anarchico. (the Pytolacca series)
Belvedere
Snow balls
Explorers
Se siete abbastanza vicini per vedere, siete troppo vicini per evitarla
Inexpressible island
Con temporary hills
Babylon
Beyond nature
CV

PATTERNS OF DECAY AND DISSOLUTION
b/n S8mm film r/t 9’17
In winter, fibrous flowering plants dry up and progressively fall toward the ground. This decaying process generates temporary and segmented
shapes, made of tangled stems that stand out with their complexity. The film is made of a few sequences where both frame and camera movements
are dictated by the trail of these short-term structures. The film is an implied manifestation of the invisible forces that generate the landscape. This
work was influenced by Johannes Weigelt and his research on Taphonomy, the study of how organisms decay and become entombed.

PATTERNS OF DECAY AND DISSOLUTION still frames

NIETZSCHE IN TURIN
2010-today, archive projet
http://nietzscheinturin.tumblr.com/
For over a year I had been examining local newspapers and free presses looking for images, chronicles and advertising that arise the “nature versus
culture” dilemma or dichotomy. This collection is displayed in two formats: an open on-line database and a wall installation. Trough this process
I render social perception of the environment and convey how experience of nature is deeply mediated by culture. This archive re-think humanity
as an element of the physical world and embodies contrasting feeling of wanting to be with humans but also outside civilization; to be detached
from it in order to deconstruct it. The title “Nietzsche in Turin” recalls the anecdote of January 3, 1889, when Nietzsche witnessed the whipping
of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms up around its neck to protect it, and then collapsed to
the ground.

L’ IMPERO DEL SOLE
2011 series of 6 bas-reliefs 18x15
The bas-reliefs were made in a local wood-carver shop during a residency in the Alps. For one month the sky had always been overcast. However the rays of sunlight passed
sometimes through the clouds lighting the slopes. The closed forms represented are an intimate analysis of this phenomenon of the landscape. The series is currently displayed
in the sculptor’s shop.

L”IMPERO DEL SOLE details

FACCIO FATICA, A VOLTE A VIVERE DA ANARCHICO (THE PHYTOLACCA SERIES)
2011, series of 7 steel sculptures, variable dimensions, installation view
The steel sculptures investigate the idea of decline. Social decline indicate a change over time from previously efficient to inefficient organizational
functioning, from previously rational to non-rational organizational and individual decision-making, from previously law-abiding to law violating
organizational and individual behavior. Decline is also an innate process, essence of every natural living thing. From a distance in time and space,
the decline is a permanent condition that regenerate every form of matter.

FACCIO FATICA, A VOLTE A VIVERE DA ANARCHICO The Phytolacca Series
installation views

BELVEDERE
2011 site-specific installation, night video-projection on a wood-crafted screen
A massive projection on a wooden screen is built on the mountain slope beside a waterfall. It shows magnified biomorphic forms and mysterious
botanical creatures. It is a sculpture collection made by a mountaineer carver. Symmetrical and harmonious compositions, visually striking are
framed by the diagetic and concrete sound of the waterfall. The installation create a speech where the environment becomes representation and
vice versa.

BELVEDERE still frames

SNOW BALLS
2008-2011, artist book reproduced on 20 slides
Sex is a physiological and primordial practice that humans have in common with non human animals. I asked twenty friends to write a description
of open air places where they engaged in a sexual experience. Each page contains a story. The book is a collage of fragile memories, a collection of
blurred images, environment details that recall a primitive approach to life. It makes me imagine what animals see when they make love.

SNOW BALLS book details

EXPLORERS (ENTERING TERRA INCOGNITA)
2011 S8mm film, r/t 4’59”
For one entire day on the beach I filmed the very moment in which people approach and dive into the sea water. The work depicts human innate
attraction to nature but also his fear / lack of confidence for the unknown.
Western symbolic culture struggles to deal with the imponderable, the invisible and the absolute forces around us, however it is an action that
each individual unconsciously does every day.

EXPLORERS (ENTERING TERRA INCOGNITA) still frames

SE SIETE ABBASTANZA VICINI PER VEDERE, SIETE TROPPO VICINI PER EVITARLA
2011 public sculpture, rain water and clayey soil
In the wooden area where I live heavy rainfall generates puddles that last for weeks. The mud under the water becomes soft and malleable like clay.
I collected and raised this matter with my hands to create a geometric presence that stands in the middle. The sculpture is accessible to all however
it will last depending on the weather conditions.

INEXPRESSIBLE ISLAND
2010, S8 mm film on digital, r/t 10’
I shot these sequences travelling trough Arizona, and New Mexico. I imagined the film as a journey diary. The film is recorded at slow speed, each
scene lasting just a few frames. The resulting piece is an in-camera edited film composed by chaotic flow of flashing images and glimpses. Even
though the human figures are almost absent, the scenes are characterized by a constant presence of man-made objects. They all recall the human idea
of nature and the human daily dealing with wild entities; cultural approaches that have economic and social implications. The work takes its name
from the extremely rocky island in the Antarctic, a place known to be one of the most isolated and unwelcoming places on earth for humans.

INEXPRESSIBLE ISLAND still frames

CON TEMPORARY HILLS
2010-2012, series of 80 b/n digital photographs
Temporary-hills rise from the ground as signs of the ongoing human activity of land-use and landscape moulding.
These small or wide man-made forms, inadvertently become islands of biodiversity, habitat for a fast-growing vegetation; a possibility for the city
wilderness to thrive. They originate and last for weeks, months or years, depending on the economy of the territory or local political implications.
They eventually become a recurring but not codified element of whatsoever urban landscape. Their simple shapes, always different, suggest an idyllic,
ancestral landscape.

CON TEMPORARY HILLS selection from the series

BABYLON
2010 video color, miniDV, r/t 15”
www.landscapingbackward.blogspot.com
A home based documentary set in the post-industrial/post-agricultural landscape of Milan suburbs. The rural scenes are mixed to a series of portraits
and interviews that highlight inhabitants everyday life and their relation with a changing natural environment. The documentary is set in a wild
wood area that will be removed to build a road.

BABYLON still frames

BEYOND NATURE
2007, 8 and S8mm films on digital video,
r/t 15’30’’ integral version, 4’40” trailer
Beyond Nature is an assemblage of sequences and fragments selected from old “found” family movies filmed from the 1950s through the ’80s,
in European, American, and South American locations. The original Super8 and 8mm films have been converted into a digital format and cut
and edited into a collage that re-frames each shot almost denying the human presence. The resulting piece foregrounds the natural landscape
in which they were originally filmed. The edited images assume the form of a journey which is not simply a compilation of landscapes, but a
representation of the possibilities that reside within human ideas of landscape. The film portrays a passage through the idea of a territory; a place
that is real and “documented” but at the same time virtual, because it exists in the past and in vanishing memories. In this sense, even though
the film is dominated by “nature,” it is totally permeated with human essence.

BEYOND NATURE still frames

SERENA PORRATI
Born in 1981, Milan, IT
Mail: serena.porrati@gmail.com
T:+39.329.67 13 258
www.serenaporrati.com
E D U C A T I O N
2011 MA Art and Science, Central St.Martins (currently enrolled).
2007 Reciprocity student at the University of California San Diego, MFA program.
2007 Second level degree in “Art and New Technologies” at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan.
2004 Graduation “Fine Art” at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan.
2002 Academic Semester c/o Staatliche Akademie der Bildende Kunste Stuttgart, Germany.
W O R K S H O P S
2011 Defauld Masterclass in Residence: on art, cities and regeneration curated by AGM culture
and Ramdom association, Lecce.
2011 Alberto Garutti “Milano e Oltre: creatività giovanile verso nuove ecologie urbane” Bovisa, Milan.
2011 Andrea Carretto e Raffaella Spagna “Aperto 2011_Art on the Border”, Ponte di Legno, BG.
2007 Lev Manovich “Visualizing Cultures” San Diego, CA
2007 “The Object” Haim Sainback, C/O MFA visual art facilty, UCSD, San Diego, CA
2007 Herryet Dodge Khann “Media and Filming” C/O MFA visual art facilty, UCSD, San Diego, CA
2006 Alberto Grifi, Brera Art and new Technologies department, Milan.
2004 “Visual, Sound and Comunication Design” workshop c/o Domus Academy of Milan.
S O L O E X H I B I T I O N S
2011 “Faccio fatica, a volte, a vivere da anarchico”, Senzatitolo Gallery, Rome.
2002 “La Materia del tempo” curated by Ken Damy, Museo of contemporary photography, Brescia.
M A I N G R O U P E X H I B I T I O N S
2011 “Aperto 2011_Art on the Border”, Ponte di Legno, BG.
2011 “The Wall (Archives)” curted by Pietro Gagliano’ e Giusy Ferrero, Archiviazioni, Lecce

2011 “Next Stop Bovisa” in occasion of Milano e Oltre, curated by Connecting Cultures, Milan.
2011 XV Bjcem, the 15th “Biennale de la Mediterranée” Thessalonki.
2010 ”Good Luck vs. Bad Luck” curated by ZERO Istanbul, “Ap(art)man No.3, Istambul
2010 “Casabianca” curated by Anteo Radovan, Zola Pedrosa, BO.
2009 “La seconda luna”, curated by Carola Bonfili and Denis Isaia, ex Municipio, Laives, BZ.
2009 “Moving Lines, Art at the boundaries of mobility”, Künstlerkreis Ortenau, Galerie in Artforum,
Offenburg.
2008 “Video REPORT ITALIA” 2006_07 GC.AC, curated by Andrea Bruciati, Galleria d’Arte
Contemporanea, Monfalcone, GO.
2008 “Take a deep breath” curated by Francesca Referza, Spoltorensemble 2008,
XXVI edition, Spoltore PE.
2008 “Day Return ticket”, curated by Francesca Referza and Massimo Arioli, Galleria Senzatitolo, Rome.
2007 Exhibition of the first international photography prize MoCA “Arte Laguna”, curated by Igor Zanti, Brolo Centro
D’Arte e Cultura di Mogliano Veneto, TV.
2007 Open studios, Visual Art Department, UCSD
2006 Biennial of Photography “International Exhibition of Photography, new generations, curated by Ken Damy, Brescia.
2004 “Salon 1° 2004” 150 students of Brera, Museo della Permanente, Milan.
2004 “Il sacro” collective young artists, curated by Angela Madesani e Andrea dall’Asta, Galleria S.fedele, Milan.
2003 “Platform n.01” from (from the Biennial of) Athens to Venice, Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, Venice.
2003 “Biennial Young people artists of Europe of the Mediterranean”, BJCM, XI Edition, Athens.
2002 “Officine02” curated by Ken Damy, Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona.
2002 “Premio Tenchio”, spazio ex Ticosa, Como. (First prize)
2002 “Brend New Talent” URBAN ART c/o Palazzina Liberty, Milan.
2002 “Sommer Austellung 2002” curated by Chris Newman c/o Staatliche Akademie der Bildende Kunste
Stuttgart, Germany.
S C R E E N I N G S
2012 “Artists’ Shorts. An Unfinished World” Modern Art Oxford, Selected by Coron Kelly, Emily Smith and Melanie Pocock
2012 “Is It Really Now?” A cura di Dario Bonetta, Artra Gallery, Milan.
2010 Milano Noir e Giald book, c/o La Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan.
2010 “Risvegli” curated by Agenzia x Milan, Parco comunale, Cassolnovo, MI.

2010 “Viaggi in immagini” curated by Francesda di Nardo, ex carcere delle murate, Florence.
2010 “Meeting Place” curated by Carlo Cislaghi Giardini del chiostro di Santa Chiara,Termini Merese.
2009 “Cox noir e giald, dodici variazioni del nero” curated by Agenzia XC.S.O.A.COX18, Milano.
2008 “Clouds of sounds inner park” curated by Andrea Lissoni, Fair_Play film and video award, Cinema Lux Lugano
2008 “Day Return Ticket” by Massimo Airoli e Referza Francesca, Galleria Senzatitolo, Rome.
2007 “Filmmaker Doc12” International Film Festival, Paesaggi Umani session, Spazio Oberdan, Milan.
2007 “CINEMI Lunghi, corti, cortissimi, documentari e animazione” curated by Francesco Ballo,
Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan.
2007 “Open Studios”, MFA building facilities, University of California San Diego, San Diego. CA.
P R E S S / I N T E R V I E W S
- “Ultime da Viafarini DOCVA” Milovan Farronato, Artribune n.3 November-December 2011
- “Hic sunt leones” Pericle Guaglianone, Artribune n.3 November-December 2011
- “Unleaded arte contemporanea” interview by Francesca Referza, You Dem TV July 2009
- “Piante disturbate” by Valeria Cerambolini, Tutto Milano, Repubblica, November 2007
- “L’altro lato”, intrview by Claudia Ceroni, Rai RadioDue, May 2009