2020 – ongoing
A research and visual art project by
Irene Pittatore
Project development and public relations
Isabelle Demangeat
Preview
Jeu de l’Oie – Festival des sciences sociales et des arts
/ Aix-Marseille Université and MUCEM
Can remote photography
help people to reduce distances?
generate traces of experiences shared from afar during the pandemic?
reveal connection sensed by people despite geographical distances?
FROM A DISTANCE (ISOLATION PORTRAITS) is a visual and narrative project carried out online with webcams at different latitudes or a few blocks away. A collective constellation of discoveries arisen from the experience of living and working remotely.
FROM A DISTANCE (ISOLATION PORTRAITS) aims at challenging the boundaries of a new visual production with desirable effects in the areas of care, training and communication, remote work, team work.
Originally conceived as a project for the months of lockdown, FROM A DISTANCE (ISOLATION PORTRAITS) brings to light unexpected possibilities of photographic work in absence of the proximity of bodies and the usual photographic devices. The limits of the photographic discipline are highlighted, forced, stretched.
FROM A DISTANCE (ISOLATION PORTRAITS) excerpts:
Numero zero (portrait d’Isabelle). Berlin, 2020
Je cherche des outils pour penser (portrait de Karine). Berre-les-Alpes, 2020
Il faut trouver de nouveaux moyens de (portrait d’Héloïse et Marlène). Belcodène, 2020
Une douleur au nous (portrait de Claude). Nice, 2020
FROM A DISTANCE (ISOLATION PORTRAITS)
/ MILES AWAY
MILES AWAY is a son project of FROM A DISTANCE (ISOLATION PORTRAITS). It drags attention to the reality of remote human relations. Irene Pittatore captures what happens behind the too sleek and luminous screens’ surfaces. The project plays with geography and intangible bounds, with resonances and dissonances between physical and emotional spaces, in times of pandemic. Conference and chat platforms are used not only to communicate but to document the specificity of the time. The devices (webcams) offer imperfect visual reproduction which mirrors the imperfection of the only remaining way to keep contact with others: through internet and displays. The artist, here, is part of the project in a more direct way. The title of each series describes the distance in kilometres between the subjects portrayed. The photographs are taken during online conversations: everyday snapshots and constructed images alternate and keep traces of the dialogues.
Me neither.
From 1152 series
I find them so beautiful.
They always lived outside of all rules.
From 0,3 series
From 1152 series
“During lockdown, day-to-day events, sleeplessness and dreams, professional dead-ends and decisions, hopes and fears are shared through digital communication channels.
Irene Pittatore captures and portrays what happens behind the too sleek and luminous screens’ surfaces. The project plays with geography and intangible bounds, with resonances and dissonances between physical and emotional spaces, in times of pandemic. It drags attention to the reality of remote human relations. In this project, technical means, conference and chat platforms are used not only to communicate with friends and colleagues but to document the specificity of the time. The devices (webcams) offer imperfect visual reproduction which mirrors the imperfection of the only remaining way to exchange and keep contact with others: through internet and displays“.
Isabelle Demangeat – Intercultural consultant and coach, founder of Fit for Culture
“Viewing the portrait was an experience. It is a destabilizing moment because the artist chooses salient elements that deconstruct a story to produce another. This obliges to make a departure from one’s own story and above all a departure from oneself. The portrait acts more as a revealer than as an operator of transformation”.
Karine Lambert – Researcher attached to the UMR TELEMME (AMU-CNRS), MMSH Aix-en-Provence and Vice-President of the Euro-Mediterranean University and Scientific Network on Women and Gender (RUSEMEG)
“With the intention of proposing a shared experience based on dialogue, the project develops like a diary, a plural visual encounter that invites people to confront themselves with contemporary art as a possible engine for new points of observation, a tool to contrast fear and a vector of new perspectives“.
Lisa Parola – Art historian and curator, founder of a.titolo collective
“In FROM A DISTANCE (ISOLATION PORTRAITS), the fragility of the photographic support reveals and challenges the fragility of relationships and work in geographical separation“.
Tea Taramino – Artist and curator of PARI – Polo delle Arti Relazionali e Irregolari