Fernando is a magician who brings us to different universes. So he can do it if we are going to co-exist with him, let him guide us. Also, he has an effect as hypnotising… There is a bunch of different references… I can notice popular culture, high culture, ritual, religion, anti culture,mythology, marketing – Coca Cola, Apple, which might be a new religion. By Anna Volkland / Silent Period during Battle of Critics at Garage Contemporary Museum of Art 2018 [THE CAVE]
This is, probably, the strangest interpretation of Plato`s myth of the cave, which I`ve ever seen. And in order to capture its meaning I`d like to draw your attention to several issues. The first is this vibrant, psychedelic visual aspect of the piece, which draws on glitch, vaporwave and retrofuturistic aesthetics dealing with pop culture, technologies, consumerism, internet art and nostalgia. Capturing viewers attention, it immerses us into affective images, which become a spectacular environment, kind of new digital nature, producing its “inhabitant” (Belfiore), and its “natural” elements: “the cave” (which is a plastic tent), “the stones” (made of foam plastic). This environment is technology-based, flat (as the wall of Plato`s cave, where the shadows are casted), affective and semantic: it is always in flow, importing images from its endless memory and archive — corporate brands as well as ancient figurines of elephants and monkeys. As in postmodern project, it confronts the idea of history, mixing images of the past, present and future, of pop culture and prehistoric art, giving them the same status of simulacrums or shadows. The second point is the dancer, a caveman and an inhabitant of this digital nature of signs. It seems, he is being trapped, infected, transformed by this vivid visuality. Images are based on code, adverts and brands, as well as all capitalist production, are based on rationality. But when being embodied in performer`s presence, technologies make their insane and esoteric entity visible. It seems, Belfiore wants us to think, how our flat digital environment can produce contemporary corporeality. Balancing a powerful emotional impact and nuanced reflection, this work raises vital questions in our post-internet world. Anna Kozonina (Russia) Silent Period during Battle of Critics at Garage Contemporary Museum of Art 2018 [THE CAVE]
THE CAVE is a performance installation investigating projections. Belfiore creates psychedelic installations and plays with constructed atmospheres by projecting colors, live recording, images for green screen and advertisement.
Projections are the presentation of an image on a surface, for example on a cinema screen or a mental image viewed as reality. But projections are also an estimate or forecast of a future situation based on a study of present trends. Projections on the body becomes a question and a critic on assuming and assuming. Projections layer complexity. Projections are excessive screen time, are illusions and attempts to hope a future.
Manipulating image, sounds and objects live and on the video, Belfiore layers the virtual and investigates constructed realities, and questioning on the screen world we are living in. As a Live Dj for his own dance Belfiore ‘vaporwaves” the theatrical space.
The subculture surrounding vaporwave is often associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and popular culture and tends to be characterised by a critical engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades which Belfiore bring to question our own times.
Belfiore is also inspired time by the documentary ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’ by Werner Herzog (2013) and the allegory of Plato’s cave. As a Shaman, Belfiore dives deep into his unconsciousness to reveal his wild creativity and power of transformation.
Concept, Choreography and Performance Fernando Belfiore Outside Eye Charlot Van der Meer and Vincent Riebeek Video Support and Effects Jeremy From AlexEtJeremy Craft Stage Maaike Fransen Light, Video, Sound Fernando Belfiore Text Compilation of varied authors Creation support by Residencies of Beam Lab, Dansmakers with thanks to Suzy Blok, Moving Futures and EAD with thanks to José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo Production Dansmakers Amsterdam and DANSCO Photography Courtesy: Pierre balling, Thomas Lenden, PaulMcGee and Thiemi Higashi
DATES
2018
26 January De NWE Vorst Tilburg
7 February Kikker, Utrecht
17 February Grandtheater, Groningen
6 March Stadtheater, Mainz
31 March Dansmakers Amsterdam
21 July Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (RU)
2019
26 February THE CAVE OCCI SpellBound queer party Amsterdam
23 MayTHE CAVE at Arti et Amicitie Zachtzinnig Radicaal Festival Amsterdam
Photo Above : Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (RU)
We have Plato’s cave, this is tired. I propose we replace shadows w/ game film, walls screaming “thats just a great T-E stunt right there.”zizeck
Whereas, to quote the philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek, ”Say, are the puppeteers who deal with the shapes political manipulators, so that Plato also proposes an implicit theory of ideological manipulation, or are we, cavemen, directly deluding ourselves? However, there is a deeper problem here, which could be best put in Hegel’s terms.
One can, of course, start with the naïve notion of people perceiving true reality from a limited/distorted perspective and thus constructing in our imagination false idols which we mistake for the real thing; the problem with this naïve notion is that it reserves for us the external position of a neutral observer who can, from his safe place,
compare true reality with its distorted mis(perception).
What gets lost here is that we all ARE these people in the case-so how can we, immersed into the cave’s spectacle, as it were step onto our own shoulder and gain insight into true reality?” J E P – Number 18 – 2004 / 1 ”Burned by the Thing” Slavoj Zizek http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/number18/zizek.htm
Photography above by Pierre Ballings
-Are you saying that your attempt to understand the fundamental operations of nature lead you to a set of equations that are indistinguishable from the equations that drive search engines and browsers on our computers
-Yeah that is correct
I SHOULD DIE SYMBOLICALLY EVERYDAY
Photography above courtesy by Thomas Lenden
Photography above courtesy by Paul mcGee
Photos above, courtesy by Thiemi Higashi
Fernando Belfiore 