INVERNOMUTO
Calendoola
February – September 2016
“Calendoola is a cycle of work that we will develop during 2016 and 2017. Calendoola observes the process of production behind a TV series and will generate a sequence of experimental videos and installations. Calendoola is loosely based on “Ngati Dread” by Angus Gillies, a three volume book that recounts a complex story of facts, crimes and vicissitudes that happened between 1985 and 1990 in Ruatoria, New Zealand. In general terms, the conflicts happened between the inhabitants of the small village and a group of Maori. The focus is not the story itself, but it contains various archetypes of the relation between different groups of people. “Ngati Dread” will be studied, dissected, decontextualized and used as a narrative path.
Calendoola follows our interest in topics related to post–colonial theories already present in our previous projects “Negus” and “MALÙ – The Stereotype of the Black Venus in Italy”. If those projects mainly used real-time and documentaristic approaches, Calendoola’s language deals with fiction and mise-en-scène. Even though the main output is a series of video episodes, we consider Calendoola as a constant backdrop in the months to come. The process can precipitate into reality through palpable media and formats: an exhibition, a screening, an installation, a paper format or any other form.”
– Invernomuto
press release
comunicato stampa
Calendoola: UTU
6 December 2016
Screening at Gluck50, Milan
The result of Invernomuto’s residency at Gluck50, Utu, is the pilot episode of Calendoola, a cycle of works that avails itself of the structure and production processes of a television series to create a world that uses fiction to narrate reality. The episode was developed and filmed entirely within the spaces of Gluck50. The narrative framework comes from a loosely adapted screenplay of the trilogy of news stories Ngati Dread by journalist Angus Gillies, which recounts the events that took place in the town of Ruatoria in New Zealand between 1985 and 1990. In short: the conflicts between the inhabitants of the village and a group of Maori rastafarians. The text sparked the interest of the artists insofar as it is a container of the archetypal dynamics of conflict between the displaced and the presumed owners of a small tract of land. While it is the ‘abstractability’ of the concept of ‘land’ – and of the relationships that it generates in the communities it hosts – that makes the transposition of the subject of Calendoola possible on the one hand, there is no shortage of esthetic, linguistic and political details on the other. It is the exaggeration of the staging (thanks in part to the massive use of post-production effects) that adds layers of complexity to the interpretation of real events: the result is a hybrid between the two, or an intermittent sequence in which one takes the place of the other without interruption. Invernomuto’s first foray into fiction, Calendoola: Utu – apart from being a first 20-minute episode – breaks free of the frame to generate props, costumes, sculptures and installations. Similarly, acting (Utu is shot in three languages: Italian, English and Spanish) and performance have been parasitized and coexist seamlessly within the film.
Invernomuto – Simone Bertuzzi (b. 1983) and Simone Trabucchi (b. 1982) – have been collaborating as Invernomuto since 2003. Although they primarily work in moving image and sound, Invernomuto also integrate sculpture, publishing, and performance in their practice. Recent solo exhibitions include Africa Addio, pinksummer (2015), MALÙ, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Toronto (2015), Artspeak, Vancouver (2015), Wondo Genet, AuditoriumArte, Rome (2015), Anabasis Articulata, Triennale di Milano, Milan (2014), Marsèlleria, Milan (2014), Negus – Far Eye, Museion, Bozen (2014), I-Ration, ar/ge kunst, Bozen (2014), The Celestial Path, GAMeC, Bergamo (2013) and Simone, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Ferrara (2011). Group shows and festivals (selection): FAR°, Nyon (2016), Cinema Dynamo / Centre d’Art Contemporain, Ginevra (2016), Live Arts Week V, Bologna (2016), Nero su Bianco, American Academy in Rome, Rome (2015), La Scrittura degli Echi, MAXXI, Rome (2015), Glitch. Interferenze tra arte e cinema in Italia, PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2014), Black Star Film Festival, Philadelphia (2014), Così Accade, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2014), Terre Vulnerabili, Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2011) and Netmage 09, Bologna (2009). In 2013 Invernomuto was a finalist in the 9th Edition of the Furla Art Award and won the first edition of the MERU ART*SCIENCE Award. In 2014 they obtain a funding from MiBAC to conclude Negus, their first full-length film, released in March 2016; the film has also been selected for Berlinale Talents (Berlin), in 2014. At the moment Invernomuto is doing a residency at Gluck50 (Milan) developing the project Calendoola. Bertuzzi and Trabucchi also pursue individual practices in the field of music, performing under the names Palm Wine and STILL respectively. They live and work in Milan and Vernasca.
A catalogue of the project ‘Calendoola: UTU’ has been published by Mousse Publishing.
