UCSD Open Studios: Serena Porrati

Serena Porrati

Beyond Nature, 2007, Digital video, estimated r/t15:00

My work investigates the condition of the natural world within the developed/degraded urban landscape. Nature, as shown in my works, is a hidden element of our contemporary culture whose essence and presence is constantly denied and overwhelmed by our built environments. As a result my vision can be also read as a micro investigation of the relationship between human and his environment; his spaces, places and "non-places."

The video 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 then cut and edited into a collage that denies any 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.

The sound track of Beyond Nature is a composition that has been realised using samples of field recordings that evoke the places represented in the video. In the composition, human voices and noises have not been deleted, and as a result, the disquieting human absence is emphasized.

Artist CV

Serena Porrati

Artists