This "cinematic poetry" dual
film by Roberto Opalio was shot in January 2005 in a remote location of Italy's Western Alps, using a 8mm cassette handheld cine camera. In April 2005 a first version was premiered at The Sage Gateshead (Newcastle) and at CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow) during My Cat Is An Alien's live performances. The final editing was made in 2008, adding an original soundtrack by My Cat Is An Alien. This version has been published in a DVD+CD set in 2009 by American label Atavistic and presented at Netwerk Center for Contemporary Art in Aalst (Belgium), Octubre CCC - Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Valencia (Spain), Netmage.10 International Live-Media Festival at Palazzo Re Enzo in Bologna (Italy), Cinema Nova in Brussels, among other international art spaces and multimedia festivals.
For the film Roberto Opalio handcrafted a two-meter-tall alien figure in iron wire, the main feature inhabiting his own artistic imaginary. Both icon and symbol of the transfiguration of the existential vision of the last human being on Earth, the Alien is the only character of Light_Earth_Blue_Silver.
This film shows the Alien's physical and existential voyage along a mountain track, where snow ("Light"), rocks, white birches and pinetrees ("Earth") mark out its physical way to the sky ("Blue"). While the Alien figure in iron wire ("Silver") slowly raises in the Alpine skyline, the transition from an "orizontal" to a "vertical" conception of perspective begins to take shape, where its body seems attracted by a sort of overwhelming, antigravitational force which will ineluctably bring the Alien to a inner transfiguration and transcendental ascension at the basis of the ontological property of being.
As all Roberto Opalio's works, the film is intended to offer wider and multiple levels of interpretation.
"[..]Light_Earth_Blue_Silver,
a 35 minute 'dual film' shot
in 8mm by Roberto using a handheld cine camera in the Western Alps, communicates
this sense of immediacy with great concentration and power. Its sole protagonist
is a large wire model of the Alien icon Roberto has been featuring in
paitings and drawings over many years. A stick figure with widely extended
arms and legs, its head is a single sharply elliptical eye, permanently
open and staring out at the universe that surrounds it. In a series of
raw ritual gestures, the Alien is dragged and pushed through a rough winter
landscape: shown across two screens, the twitching of the wire limbs makes
it appear as if the Alien were writhing and crawling over the snow-covered
rocks and brown, bare earth. To MCIAA's intense soundtrack, the Alien
becomes entangled with branches, twigs and lichen until at the movie's
climax, he is seen moving upright against a blue Alpine sky.[..]" - Ken Hollings (from 'A Homemade Universe', The Wire #331 cover
article, September 2011)
The film is available through ATAVISTIC WORLDWIDE in the DVD+CD set 'Through the Magnifying Glass of Tomorrow' _____________________________________________________________________________________________
ALIEN BLOOD
a film by Roberto Opalio
soundtrack by My Cat Is An Alien
2008 | 41 minutes | 4:3 | color | stereo
proudly filmed in 8mm
This film
has been selected by New York group Sonic Youth as part of the SONIC
YOUTH etc.: SENSATIONAL FIX
touring exhibition, and was shown at several European museums of
contemporary arts from 2008 to 2010:
LiFE museum - St Nazaire, France (June-Sept 2008)
Museion - Bolzano, Italy (Oct 2008-Jan 2009)
Kunsthalle - Dusseldorf, Germany (Jan 31-Apr 26, 2009)
Konsthall - Malmo, Sweden (May 29-Sept 20, 2009)
CA2M - Madrid, Spain (Jan 29-May 2, 2010)
Still
images of Roberto Opalio's film 'Alien Blood'
appears in the exhibition's official art catalog: VVAA - SONIC YOUTH etc.: SENSATIONAL FIX(2009)
Published
by: Walther König
Format: Hbk, 7.25 x 7.25 in. / 720 pgs / 700 color / two 7-inch
records.
Edited by Roland Groenenboom
The publication is available in English, French, German and Italian
My Cat Is An Alien's
original soundtrack to the film has been published as a private press vinyl-only
art edition on Opax Records in 2008.
In 2011 a digital and remastered version of the soundtrack has been included in
My Cat Is An Alien 'ALIENOLOGY:
Selected Works 1998-2008' 10 CD
Box Set
published by Elliptical Noise (CAN).
The first edit of this film has been
used as official video to My Cat Is An Alien's track taken from 'What
Space Is Made For' 3CD BOX (Elliptical Noise, Canada, 2011), selected for The Wire magazine's Tapper CD Compilation (March 2011).
Re-edited in 2016 and premièred at Over The Real international festival of videoart at GAMC, Viareggio (I)_____________________________________________________________________________________________
WHISPERS OF THE LAST LIGHT
a short film by Roberto Opalio
soundtrack by Roberto Opalio
2006 | 13 minutes 19 seconds | 4:3 | color | stereo
proudly filmed in 8mm
Filmed on March 21st,
2006, the video represents a visionary, introspective view of the
empty spaces over the city, Torino. Through a unique, hand-manipulated
shot made in real-time, Roberto Opalio's poetic fragmentation and
distortion of real objects recalls early film experiments by Man
Ray, as well as a certain Warholian psychedelia in the use of filtered
light as a main principle of creation / perception of one's own
reality. The soundtrack, recorded the same day appositely, leads
to a further estrangement with the use of Opalio's looped wordless
vocals and electronics merging into a heavy, ecstatic stream of
sounds.
Published in limited Private
Press Art Editions on Opax Records Screened at Nova Cinema (Brussels) during an evening dedicated to Roberto Opalio's "cinematic poetry" films.
Premièred during a live performance
of My Cat Is An Alien together with Lee Ranaldo
of Sonic Youth.
Screened at Nova Cinema (Brussels) during an evening dedicated to Roberto Opalio's "cinematic poetry" films.
Both film and music
were recorded by Roberto Opalio at home in Torino, Italy on November
1st, 2005; the artist set his 8mm camera on the balcony and filmed
his own glass art creation entitled 'The Angel of Glass' animated
by the soft light of a candle under a blackened sky.
