I was fortunate to
attend this year’s Cartoombria
Festival in Perugia
, Italy (The 10th New Animated Images International Exhibition
Cartoombria 2004) to perform a live video mix and give a
talk about my work.
Perugia
is located about two hours away by car from Rome and it was
originally an Etruscan/Umbrian city that was inhabited since
9th century B.C. It’s amazing how well the historical part
of the city has been preserved, almost every building, street,
etc has not changed and when walking in through the streets
you feel like you have slipped centuries back in history.
Except for a few exhibitions, all the screenings, performances
and lectures were held in the Auditorium
Santa Cecilia, located in the center of the city. My performance
took place on the night of Dec, 2nd and I gave a lecture on
the evening of Dec, 4th.
The performance and the lecture went really well. Actually,
to be honest, I was quite nervous about performing. Mainly,
I think, because I'm more used to perform in rather casual
venues such as clubs or event centers. The auditorium
in Perugia instead is a Baroque theater built in the 17th
century. The audience seemed very serious and I was a bit
concerned about showing my characters in such a classical
looking building. Once the performance started, I didn't have
a good visual of the audience from the stage due to the strong
lighting so I couldn't tell how people were reacting to my
work, that made me even more nervous too! After all was done
though I was able to speak to people in the audience and it
seemed like people enjoyed my show, phew!
Among the guest artists invited to the festival there were
Shaun from MK12
(U.S.), Noel from Voodoo
Dog (Ireland) and Blu
(Bologna,Italy). Shaun and Noel gave great presentations of
their work. Blu
did an audio-visual performance as part of a group called
“OK NO” for this event, and interestingly he is also
an active graffiti artist. You can check out his animation
and graffiti work here.
Very nice stuff.
Many, many thanks to Moreno, the main organizer of
this festival, and to Donatella, the coordinator, for
having me there and doing such a great job to take care of
us during the event! It was really an unforgetable experience!
After the event I stayed in Rome for a few extra days to
do a little tourism. There are so many things to see in Rome
but my time was limited, so I decided to just take a walking
tour listed in a Lonely
Planet guide book. The tour guide was an archeologist
so she gave us a really interesting overview of the history
of the city. I enjoyed our visit to the Coliseum
so much that I decided to go back there again the next day.
I also spent a lot of time exploring the Vatican
but then I ran out of time to visit the Sistine
Chapel to see the fresco paintings...
Below are some photos from Rome:
