IMAGERY

IMAGOTURGY
film scripts and video works created for stage installations and performances
(1986-2019)

1986
LENZ
from the novel by Georg Büchner
“On January 20, Lenz set out into the mountains…”
dramaturgy | Maria Federica Maestri
imagoturgy | Francesco Pititto
directed by | Maria Federica Maestri | Francesco Pititto | Bruno Stori
interpreter | Bruno Stori
Filmed in 16mm film at the San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena, a new part, designed in 1971, in a rationalist-metaphysical style according to the unfinished project by Aldo Rossi and Gianni Braghieri entitled “L’azzurro del cielo”. Première || Parma, Lenz Rifrazioni, 28 March 1986
Inspired by Alan Schneider’s FILM with the screenplay by Samuel Beckett, his only work for cinema. Starring Buster Keaton.
“Esse est percipi. Suppressed all extraneous, animal, human, divine perception, the perception of self continues to exist. The attempt not to be, in the escape from every extraneous perception, is frustrated in the face of the ineluctability of the perception of self”. (Samuel Beckett, Film).

1987
CATHARINA VON SIENA by J.M.R. LENZ 16 mm. original live film extracts from “Café Müller” by Pina Bausch.

2003
LIFE IS DREAM: Madrid. In the square, the statue of Caldéron de la Barca seems to look away from the statue of Garcia Lorca. Both look at the theater that in turn looks at them. In the Plaza Mayor people pass and move away from its many corners and passages through the streets of Madrid. In the rooms of the Academy of San Fernando rest, among others, the two works by Goya “El Entierro de la Sardina” and “Casa de Locos”. Two places of the mind where our female figure vanishes, two visions that scream the pagan festival and the madness of reality.
Of Mercy. Superimposition, sum, con/fusion of the states of memory, mixture of signs and dreams. The Pietà of Antonello and the Pietà of the Theatre. Chlorylene. The Mother who is not there, the “Absence Tiger” that pervades everything, that determines everything, dying.
Plaza. In the Plaza of statues, the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, Caldéron and Lorca never cross their eyes. Tuxedoes. Semíramis from “La hija de l’aire”, Julia from “La dévocion de la cruz”, Angela from “La dama duende”. The image implodes until it vanishes into the red of the fire. Rosaura blue. The warrior woman, between swords and scimitars, claims to be a woman. A soft blue and grey light dominates the neutral place. Academy. The works of the Great Image Makers flow and struggle with different movements. Theatre and Madness, Profane and Sacred, Carnival and Lent. The Burial of the Sardine and the House of Fools attract, suck, in/corporate the Nursing Actress. Together they dance and laugh. It is always festive time. It is always time for life and dreams.

2005
BRUNO LONGHI filming of historical documents and funerals of Togliatti, fragments from “Uccellacci e Uccellini” by P.Pasolini.
CONCIERTO A LO DIVINO Sequences of naked bodies spinning on the ground within luminous crosses and physical superimpositions from above.

2006
THE CONSTANT PRINCE shooting in Morocco (Tangier and Fez), Ceuta, Seville, Madrid, Burgos, Cordoba and Barcelona. Filmic sequences of attoral actions on beaches, alleys, Genet’s tomb, a game with children next to the Mosque, on Roman remains, in hilly exteriors, on towers and squares.
HIGH SURVEILLANCE
Reproduction through installation of monitors with film sequences made in Barcelona with actors, in different points of the city, indoors and outdoors.

2007
RADICAL CHANGE 7 EPISODES FROM OVIDIO’S METAMORPHOSES Imagoturgical realization for each single episode: Phoenix Death and Phoenix Birth, Narcissus, Eurydices, Hecuba, Alcyone, Pyramus and Thisbe, Daphne.

2008
I FROM OVIDIO METAMORPHOSIS, imagoturgy on body and gelatin.
DELIVER US, CHILDREN, YOUR EYES imagoturgy on multiple red eyes, bodies of actors, attoral actions in dialogue with the corresponding live actions.
CHAOS imagoturgy on close-ups of shaved heads, superimpositions with material elements, chromatic modifications.

2009
EXILIUM FROM TRISTIA DI OVIDIO Shooting in Bucharest and Constanta in Romania. Landscapes, marine and city environments, parks and classical concerts, squares, people.
EXILIUM LA GRANDE CICATRICE Imagoturgia with outdoor and indoor film sequences by Lenz Teatro. Attoral actions dialoguing with live actions, reproduction on a transparent cylindrical scenic element.
DIDO DA EPISTUALE DI OVIDIO shot in Carthage in Tunisia and Cartagena in Spain. Filmic sequences with attoral actions in marine interiors and exteriors.
DIE SCHACHTEL Imagoturgy realized with actors and musicians, close-ups with choreography of the head in rapid and repeated movements. Reproduced during the performance of Franco Evangelisti’s work on four transparent walls, containing the entire instrumental ensemble.
HAMLET ALLA ROCCA DI SAN SECONDO Imagoturgia performed in the interior of Lenz Teatro, acting sequences in direct dialogue with the live sequences, reproduced in the various spaces of the medieval fortress then Renaissance residence.

2011
THE ISLAND OF DOGS. BURIAL.MATCH.BURNING.AGUA.THUNDER.
Imagoturgy realized before the theatrical rehearsals of the different sequences, on a large mobile armchair, with aberrant effect of the physical body and reproduced on large transparent scenographic wings together with chromatic compositions of material and floral elements.
HAMLET ALLA REGGIA DI COLORNO Imagoturgia realised in Lenz Teatro and in the interiors of the royal palace, actorial sequences in direct dialogue with the live sequences, reproduced in the different spaces of the Farnese ducal residence.
AENEIS (SEI EPISODI ) Imagoturgy for each episode dialoguing with live actions, animal elements with chromatic modifications, chromatic compositions with material, bodily and informal elements.

2012
HAMLET AL TEATRO FARNESE Imagoturgia realised in Lenz Teatro’s interiors, attoral sequences in direct dialogue with live sequences, reproduced in the various spaces of the Pilotta Monumental Complex, in particular at the Teatro Farnese.
AENEIS IN ITALY (from the books 7-12 of Virgil’s Aeneid) Filmed inside Lenz Teatro, with compositions of fruits and vegetables. Imagoturgy for each episode dialoguing with live actions, chromatic modifications, compositions with plastic, bodily and informal elements.

2013
I PROMESSI PROMESSI Imagoturgia realized inside Lenz Teatro, supine, seated and in an upright position with movements in circles, with repeated gestures, in particular the sign of the Cross. Modifications of the body with aberrations in height and intense chromatism, reproduction on large transparent sheets – with a wall function – inside a large space divided into rooms. The view of the public, in freedom, followed the perimeter of the installation within which the actors acted.

2014
VERDI RE LEAR_L’OPERA CHE NON C’E’ Imagoturgia characterized by body movements of old man in fetal position, with changes of pictures and angles, reproduced from the back on transparent sheets in series to the proscenium. Between the transparent screens the actions of actors and singers took place.

2015
AN HOUR OF A DAY EVERY DAY Feature film documentary totally in subjective, in the indoor and outdoor locations of Pier Luigi Bacchini’s country house. The sitting points, the views and landscapes, the working room, the kitchen. Environments, corners, perspectives and visual spaces of his writing.
IL FURIOSO LA FUGA, L’ISOLA Imagoturgia realized in the interiors and exteriors of the Guatelli Museum, sequences of a multitude of objects collected in different shooting levels, attoral actions in the environments before the live show. Reproductions in the interiors and exteriors dialoguing with the live actions.
IL FURIOSO L’UOMO, IL PALAZZO Imagoturgia realized in the interiors and exteriors of the Rasori Pavilion, attoral sequences in different spatial and chromatic situations, both internal and external, in environments prior to the live show. Reproductions inside and outside dialoguing with the live actions in the different environments of this historic abandoned hospital building.
VERDI RE LEAR Imagoturgia identical to the one realized in 2014 for a single room, and in addition second Imagoturgia, with close-ups of actors and singers characterized by black and grey dominance, for the second room where the second part of the opera was performed. The reproduction took place on two large screens, from the proscenium to the backdrop, with the effect of splitting and overlapping the images.

2016
IL FURIOSO L’ILLUSION, LA FOLLIA, LA MORTE, LA LUNA Imagoturgia realized in the interiors and exteriors of Cremation Time, attoral sequences in different spatial and chromatic situations, both internal and external, in environments prior to the live; both of the Temple and of Lenz Teatro. Reelaborated scientific sequences of the Moon and the planets. Indoor and outdoor reproductions dialoguing with the live actions in the different environments of this great structure of farewell and silence.
AUTODAFE’ Imagoturgy realized in Lenz Teatro, attoral sequences in the foreground with facial modifications, reproduced inside today’s cell of this ex-napoleonic prison. The reproduction took place through monitors placed inside the cell and close to the actor. Other elaborated and aberrated foreground sequences of old and historical actors were reproduced on the vaults of the long corridor where the main actions of choral singing, singing and attoral performances took place.

2017
THIS DEBOLE FORCE (from Oedipus the Tyrant and Song of Destiny by Hyperion of Hölderlin) Imagoturgy performed in Lenz Theatre, full-length, swirling, spinning sequences, reproduced next to the Roman statues in the Hall of the Statues of Veleia, in the Archaeological Museum of the Pilotta Monumental Complex. The duplication and the repeated rotating movement produced an effect of epiphany and holographic memory.
PURGATORY Imagoturgy made of large Numbers: 1, 3, 7, 9 reproduced in the vanishing point of the central nave of the former Old Hospital of Parma. Symbolic relationship with the path of Dante and Virgil in Dante’s Purgatory.
PARADISE. A SACRED Imagoturgy reproducing on the floor a flow of blades of light like the water of a flowing river. Higher up, on the upper floor of the imposing structure of the North Bridge, a tondo containing figures of black holes, a child in his mother’s womb, a divine and aberrated image, swirling together with the tondo/world/sphere, in the figure of Leonardo da Vinci’s Scapigliata.

2018
THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD Imagoturgy reproducing two figures belonging to the Betrothed Betrothed, one, aberrated and with accelerated movement, reproduced on the large entrance door of the Farnese Theatre and the other, with identical effects, enveloping the monumental statue of Maria Luigia by Canova in the Sala delle Colonne where, in length, the performative action took place. The third sequence, original, made in Lenz Teatro and reproduced on three large surfaces of the stage of the Teatro Farnese, slowly reproducing three close-ups, all different, of the Author/God, played by a child actor. Uno e Trino come il Dio dell’auto sacramental.
HYPHIGENIA IN AULIDE Imagoturgia reproducing figures of frescoes by Correggio filmed live and at close range, reproduced on a small transparent screen in the Oratory of S.Quirino.

2019
LA VIDA ES SUEÑO The Job by Antonio de Pereda, (1611/1678), a painting in the renovated north wing of the National Gallery, becomes the object of dramaturgical and visual investigation for the implementation of the sacramental self. Our Man, for the sacramental self, will have the features of an adolescent in the same posture as the painting: holding the shard, his hand resting on his heart and his gaze turned upwards, to God. The difference between the fixity of the painting in the penitent figure of Job and the movement of the Man/Child, in the young body of those who look towards the future, will make a distinction between freedom granted whether or not to betray the Faith and freedom to be conquered in the progress of life. What is the boundary between the free will of the one and the other? Then in place of the Child, to merge with Job, the figure of a man whose mind has suffered a gap in life, at which the boundary between dream and real world, between fiction and reality, has become subtle, interchangeable, between an inside and an outside that determines the freedom to be able to decide, how not to decide.