In conversation with Italian video-maker Yuri Ancarani, as he navigates modern-day Venice, the push and pull relationship with nature, and loneliness
Atlantide 2017-2023 at Art City Week in Bologna, MAMbo, Italy
On the occasion of Art City Week in Bologna, MAMbo (Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna) inaugurated the project Atlantide 2017-2023 by Italian video maker Yuri Ancarani. A project in two halves, Atlantide is both a feature film that premiered in Venice in 2021 and simultaneously an investigative project into the surrounding context in which the film was made. A context that saw historical moments in the lagoon city’s existence, from lockdown measures to record-breaking high tides to protest action against the invasive cruise ships.
Ancarani’s attention to detail and lingering gaze bring the viewer into a Venice far away from the clichéd and exported version. Only recently concluded, the exhibition consists of dominating screens of clips from these moments that surround the making of the film, yet take on an importance of their own. Facing each other, the videos establish their own forms of communication, creating relationships through the audiovisual and demonstrating a multifaceted Venice.
Venice Big Cruise Ships
The viewer is devoured by the images as they enter the main exhibition hall, two screens talk to each other; one video shows an accordion player at dusk playing in front of a vaporetto (water bus) that has run aground due to the unusually high tides and the opposite shows a shopkeeper sweeping water out of the door.
With each video, prominent themes emerge from man’s relationship or abuse of nature, which results in the climate crisis, to man’s relationship with each other, referencing the action against the ‘grandi navi’ (big cruise ships), demonstrating the power of coming together against the destructive nature of mass tourism.
Ancarani aimed to delve into the sclichéd image of Venice
With both projects, Ancarani aimed to delve into the so-called clichéd image that has been constructed and shared relentlessly, through the imagined story of the film’s protagonist; Daniele, a native of one of the lagoon islands, and the subculture of barchino (motorboats) racing, far from the madding crowds of St Mark’s Square.
«The initial idea with Atlantide was to present an image that everyone has the same conviction of knowing because even a Texan is convinced that he knows Venice, from how it looks, the people, and the buildings. I want to show in a simple way that we live within a cliché, and the reality that we see is a representation of that reality. It’s not the truth.
We see as truth the representation of something that has been recounted endlessly that eventually became reality. We know the Venice of Woody Allen, the Venice of Hollywood, even the Italians now see Venice through the eyes of Hollywood. I wanted to represent reality, not an interpretation, and above all to use Venice as a symbol to talk about issues that affect everyone on a global scale».
Filming the unexpected: Yuri Ancarani observing the breathing Venice
During filming, Ancarani began to observe the living and breathing Venice that surrounded them, and thus the exhibition project was born in sync with the feature film. «These historical moments of Venice are not part of the feature film. I have the latest generation camera, but I use it lightly and quickly, therefore giving me the possibility of capturing even the unexpected.
When you are shooting a film you have predictable moments and interesting deviations but I felt that I also had the responsibility of taking in what was happening around the film. That’s how the exhibition came to be, but the idea of an exhibition had already been decided from the first moment I shot something that I knew for sure would never make it into the film».
At Sala delle Ciminiere: images as a powerful tool
Presented in the Sala delle Ciminiere, the screens dominate every space, concluding in a corridor of multi-screens, lasers, and smoke, as the viewer becomes a part of the installation and no longer a passive observer. «My work mainly communicates with images and images are a powerful tool, powerful in general, not just mine, images and audiovisuals are very powerful. I like that the image is much bigger than the viewer, you have to let yourself be devoured by the image, I don’t like it when the people who are watching are bigger than the images they are seeing.
It’s like they have control over things, but instead, you have to lose control. Simultaneously, I like when the moving image becomes fluid and can go and be anywhere, wherever there are screens, whether this is on the internet, a device, or a telephone, but it can also be in a gallery, or a museum, festival, cinema, a platform».
The psychedelic in the Ancarani’s movies
Throughout the film and installation, there is a recurrent theme of the psychedelic, from the merging of images, the protagonist’s drug use, and the morphing of the border between reality and fantasy. «I like when the viewer goes through an experience with my work, losing all control, they feel carried away, and therefore psychedelia is a reference, and an attempt to create a psychedelic image is part of my research. Psychedelic, hypnotic, something that can get inside of your head, that doesn’t stay solely on the surface.
Perhaps what convinced me to do this project is that when we are inside a two-dimensional image, we enter it fully in that there is nothing left in the two-dimensional image. This is often the case when you are at a restaurant and maybe whilst the parents talk, their kid has a phone in his hand and is completely immersed in the screen, he’s hypnotized, he’s inside the image. How can we, therefore, think that what he’s seeing is only two-dimensional? When you are inside an image you are inside a system. Bringing myself and others out of a cliché is tiring. Venice for everyone is a cliché. This exhibition and film demonstrate that Venice continues to live and change shape despite its pressures and the need to cling to the past».
Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan
The exhibition Atlantide 2017-2023 will be on show at MAMbo until 7th May 2023. An anthological exhibition of Ancarani’s video works will open at PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan on 28th March 2023, creating a connection between the two cities with these sibling exhibitions.
Yuri Ancarani
Born in Ravenna in 1972, Yuri Ancarani is an Italian video-maker and film director, who lives and works in Milan.. Ancarani has won several prizes in his artistic career, including the Special Jury Prize for Filmmakers of the Present at the 69° Locarno Film Festival in 2016.
