Marco Bolognesi is a multi-faceted artist who creates new work through the mediums of FILM, photography, Illustration, drawing and painting. Bolognesi will be creating NEW work and interacting with our film makers at Renderyard’s Online Residency. But first, let’s find out a bit more about Marco’s fascinating work and world.
Render - How has your film making work developed from your first films to your most recent film work?
Marco - I am not one to fit with labels or to follow any genres, because I believe that I am creating my own genre. I am also quite ambitious and I like the challenge of this way of working. In America when I showed my last short film and people started talking about by style as “sci-fi spaghetti Bolognesi”. I thought this was cool.
My approach is to mix genres. In the making of my first two videos (Justice and Truth and The Party of the Silence), I had lots of constraints in the kinds of images that I could use and what I was able to speak about but I tried anyway to leave my mark.
I started mixing video art and documentary because I believe that an artist must find new ways of expression even if it is a review of something that has happened, to seek new ways of discussing a particular topic. This debate is the basis of life and democracy.
If we want a new democratic world we must have the courage to discuss and find new ways of expression. I have always watched with great interest the aesthetics of the video art’s world even if I have a bigger interest in the story. It doesn’t matter if the story is about a cyborg or two flowers, it is important that the story is readily available to the public and not just a thing that is available for a select few.
Render - In 2008 you filmed Black Hole, a film released in parallel with your sci-fi photography exhibition Dark Star, which both defined a very particular futuristic sci-fi visual style. Can you briefly describe your own view of this world of hybrids and cyborgs that you portrait in Black Hole?
Marco - A cyborg is a cybernetic organism and it is not a far away concept. For me the concept machine and human already exists when we have a person with a pacemaker or when there are athletes like Oscar Pistorius which runs with carbon prosthetic. These people are already cyborgs, this is not sci-fi it is in the present.
In Black Hole I have begun to develop a story that I wish to broaden into my first feature film. The idea is that of a computer that incorporates the crew on the ship. It is a concept different from Hal9000 in 2001 Space Odyssey; my computer is a fusion between Richard the communication officer on the spaceship; is the fusion of the machine and the human to create a new identity, in order to achieve a “reset” of his human state; Starting afresh from its origins in the hope of building a different world.
Dark Star is my first publication that collects all my photographic work between 2002 and 2008. In this period I have developed several projects about my view on science fiction. Science fiction for me is a way to deal with and talk about contemporary and current issues such as GMOs or the relationship between machine and man.
In ‘Cyborg Faces’ for example, I investigated the future of the human being. What may our horizons be now that we are immersed in, and so utterly dependent upon, technology? These re-designed faces remain human and beautiful and yet they are dramatically transformed by mechanical and technological components. And these are not merely piercings or adornments, circuit boards and computer chips now literally becoming part of the body. They are the post-human.
Render - Technology, science fiction and fantasy are an important part of your work how do you combine all this in the process of creating your own visuals?
Marco -There are no recipes, as a child I grew up with Dungeons & dragons, warhammer and warhammer 40.000 without mentioning the comic book or science fiction films. I believe that all those things I was surrounded by and kept on looking at have created my own imagery. It is as if I am a shaman who talks to his spirits.
Render - You have worked with great figures of the fashion world such as Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Kei Kagami and Dolce & Gabbana, what role has fashion had within the creation of your work?
Marco - Fashion fascinates me for the details of his research for the glamour. Anyway for me fashion is an art from which I take inspiration and nothing more. I love collaboration: is an energy exchange, I will continue to do collaborations.
Render - Is Bolognesi’s work influenced by modern advertising with relevance to visual areas created by people such as Nick Night and the digital computer generated imagery used within the advertising and cinema industry? What influences do you see in your own work?
Marco - I am very familiar with Nick Night’s work however in my work I don’t use digital computer generated imagery. My portraits are of real women and objects are either glued to the face or are additional prosthetic attachments.
Certainly I love cinema especially Hollywood special effects and the advertising is great for my reference, I also love looking for things in a seemingly distant world with which I then interact through my work. Elements of a huge influence for me are the world of toy and action figures and also soldiers or fantasy and sci-fi miniatures. I also love the work of Chris Burdett or the work of the Chapman brothers.
Render - The style of your work brings to mind references such as HR Giger and David Lynch how has these and other artists and directors influenced your work?
Marco - They are two artists of enormous talent. Each of them gave me much inspiration and are artists that I am still discovering.
I love Peter Greenaway too and his infinite facets. My interest lies in seeing how an artist has'
approached the movie and how he has built his imagination and his style. It is in this same way that I see the director Shinya Tsukamoto. It is vital for me to see how he developed his poetry and especially the way he has led a film like Tetsuo.
Render - Bolognesi’s work goes beyond the visual and seems to pick up influences
from science fiction authors such as William Gibson and Ian Banks, what is your interest in science fiction?
Marco - As I have already said science fiction is a place where they display a futuristic world.
The science fiction that I love is a metaphor for the future to talk about the present
Render - How has your been influenced by Cyber Culture and Cyber Punk?
Marco - In a recent interview with Anna C. Butler I covered a similar subject.
I am very influenced by Cyberpunk and the cyber culture but it is a very broad culture and nowadays it permeates a lot of what surrounds us. As with all my influences I let them sink in and then I metabolize them.
More on Marco’s Bolognesi influence by Cyber culture: http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/rackroom/87784-marco-bolognesi
Render - Your work also breaths multi-culturalism, what is the relationship between your work and Asian aesthetics?
Marco - The Asian aesthetic influences in my life started back in the 80’s because' in Italy in the 80s began 'the huge invasion of Japanese Anime’. The Asian influence in my work is more about the visual aspect and less about a narrative structure.
Oriental films and anime are full of cyborg and robot influences and there is a very strong contrast in the relationship between humans and the machine. The duality of science and technology as a big help for humanity on one side and also as a means of destruction in times of war is something that fascinates me.
Two films are basic influences of mine. The Korean filmmaker Byung-Chun Min in Natural City and the Japanese filmmaker Kazuaki Kiriya in Casshern where both explore the relationship between androids and the human race within the setting of a chaotic and hyper-technological future in which man has to fight in order to preserve the capacities that make up human nature.
Render - What kind of subjects and themes would you like to explore next as a filmmaker?
Marco - In this moment I am working on different projects: in one of them I am exploring seven short films that deal with the media. Events occur around the theme of the media’s power, especially television. I was inspired by a TV journalist looking for stories that may be of interest to the public precisely like the character of Kika by Almodovar.
I will create 7 grotesque stories that will cross with each other, then I'm also working on production of a film made of trash cans of old films mixed with what I am going to shoot, inspired by the assembly of Ejzenstejn.
Render - Do you feel is important that artists and film makers promote and interact with digital film networks such as Renderyard?
I believe that Artists and filmmakers must and can have a huge opportunity to work together to realize joint projects or personal. In the same way filmmakers and film artists should find points of union and stop working alone on their own and put their energies together. A network such as Renderyard must be a source of ideas and projects that are born together through interaction and discussion.
Marco Bolognesi www.marcobolognesi.co.uk
Bomar Edition www.bomar-edition.co.uk
END of interview.
