Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli

The Mind’s Egg

The Mind’s Egg

Highlights, Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, Works

This is a short trailer for my video “The Mind’s Egg”.
The full video is 2:30 long and is shown on festivals and exhibitions.

Winner of the Premio Borgo 2024

Screenings:
• December 26, 2024 – January 1, 2025: Addis Video Art Festival, as part of Foundation Screening Series 2024/2025 (dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the foundation of The New Museum of Networked Art) curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
• December 3, 2024: Toast with the winners of the Premio Borgo 2024, La Scala d’Oro, Rome. Click here for details. Maria Korporal won the Premio Borgo Video with The Mind’s Egg
• November 18-24, 2024: 19° Comunicurtas, Festival Audiovisual Internacional de Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil.
• November 2-17, 2024: Art Video, gallery L’esTRAde – Photographie & Vidéo & Art Visuel, Athis de l’Orne, Normandie, France.
• November 1-30, 2024: VIDEOFORMES 2024 Young public screenings, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
• October 1-15 + May 21, 2024: TRANSGRESSION art + technology, curated by Hernando Urrutia, Madeira, Portugal.
• May 17-25, 2024: Surrealist Vacation Resort Athens 2024, The Surrealists Project – Vacations in the Subconscious curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne / The New Museum of Networked Art, Athens Digital Art Festival, Athens, Greece.
• September 27 – October 3, 2023: Mykonos Biennale, Mykonos, Greece.
• August 29 – September 2, 2023: The Surrealist Summer Vacation Camp Los Angeles / Cologne 2023, The Surrealists Project – Vacations in the Subconscious curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne / The New Museum of Networked Art, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, USA.
• July 13-15, 2023: Surrealist Vacation Resort Ottersberg 2023, The Surrealists Project – Vacations in the Subconscious curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne / The New Museum of Networked Art in collaboration with Institut für Alles Mögliche, Performance + Medientage Ottersberg / Bremen, Germany.
• June 30 – December 31, 2023: ON SCREEN Festival, Pi ]π[ Digitꓯl MulTiverse, Goes:art, Vienna.
• June 30 – July 31, 2023: FONLAD 2023, International Video Art & Performance Festival, Coimbra (PT) and online.
• June 17-18, 2023, The Surrealist Vacations Resort Berlin 2023, The Surrealists Project – Vacations in the Subconscious curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne / The New Museum of Networked Art, Institut für Alles Mögliche, Berlin.
• May 20, 2023, Licuadora Alternativa vol. 5.5 (The Secret Garden), Caracas, Venezuela.
• April 14-23, 2023: Eggsibition, Neuköllner Salon, Berlin.
• April 1-16, 2023: Uovo d’artista, Il Granarone, Calcata VT, Italy.

Keep in touch to be informed about screenings!

Description:
The metaphore of the mind’s egg refers to some of the highly estimated potentialities of the human mind that we know as creativity, innovation, and originality. Just like an egg contains the genetic material and nutrients necessary for the growth of a new organism, the mind’s egg contains the ideas and fundamentals, knowledge and experiences that may give birth to inventions, new insights or new art forms.
I had these ideas in mind when I began working on this video. I started with a 3D animated egg and then continued with an animated chalk drawing on a blackboard. The drawn figures seem to come out of the egg, but at the same time they nest the egg in a protected environment. When the drawing is completed, the egg and the figures undergo a transformation. The result is a dynamic digital microcosmos.
To add a commentary on this evolution I consulted an artificial intelligence nonetheless capable of expressing ideas and thoughts. I prompted ChatGPT to write a short poem about The Mind’s Egg. After several unsuccessful attempts, it produced the following poem:

Nest the mind
Mind the nest
Where thoughts take flight
And dreams can rest.

I thought the verses were appropriate to end the video with.

title: The Mind’s Egg
technique: Digital/analogue animation video
length: 2’30”
year: 2023
music: “light-o-logic” by Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli, from the album “Congenital Cataract of the Eye” (MuteAntSounds)
poem: ChatGPT
concept, images, drawings, animation, effects and montage: Maria Korporal
© Maria Korporal 2023

* Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli is co-founder & Station Manager @ Dots Unlimited Radio, a multichannel webradio dedicated to free music, sound research and new forms of communication and language: www.duradio.net
Knob-twiddler in the field of experimental music, fond of all possible links between sound and psychology, undergoing multiple ambient/noise/psychoacoustic creative projects plus -within the scientific community- currently approaching sounds and frequencies to be applied in several alternative cognitive-behavioral therapies in the treatment of various forms of OCD, freely and originally inspired by some tests conducted by Jean Piaget in the 40s of last century. He has also collaborated with Maria Korporal in the projects Pervitin Power, ZoOm into my Room and Is a dot a black hole?

Pervitin Power

Pervitin Power

Highlights, News, Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, Works

The video above is a short trailer. The full video “Pervitin Power” is 6:37 long.

Pervitin was the drug for soldiers in Nazi Germany. It is known today as Crystal Meth. In the video I take on the role of the soldier. After simulating a Pervitin shot, a change of consciousness takes place. Animations move through the space like hallucinations, culminating into a violent climax.

Screenings, selections and exhibitions:

• February 23, 2023: Screening of 12 videos by Maria Korporal in the context of Premio Borgo Video, curated by gallery La scala d’oro, Sala Dionigi (Chiesa Valdese), Rome, Italy.
• November 10, 2022 – January 7, 2023: außer ich – inner ich / part 2, INSELGALERIE Berlin.
• August 29, 2022: The Short Nights of Berlin, Kino Central Berlin.
• August 11, 2022: FilMuzik, Bird Production, Gioiosa Ionica RC, Italy.
• July 23 – September 6, 2022: Eclectic Dreams III, video art program curated by David King on VisualcontainerTV.
• April 2, 2022: TCA’s Open Screen, Taos Center for the Arts, Taos, New Mexico, USA.
• March 10-27, 2022: T-Short Animated Film Online Festival 2022, online.
• November 1, 2021: ESSENCE/ABSENCE, Pavilion of The Wrong Biennale n°5, curated by Matteo Campulla.
• October 29 – November 14, 2021: Verfremdung, Gallery VBK, Berlin.

Pervitin was the drug of Nazi Germany: a methamphetamine, which increases wakefulness and physical activity, and decreases appetite. Like most addictive substances, methamphetamine can give users a feeling of pleasure, confidence, and energy beyond what they normally experience. The “meth high” involves both physical and psychological changes, which manifest themselves in euphoria and, at the same time, emotional blunting: people become less aware of their feelings. It is said to spark a great enthusiasm, as well as a feeling of confidence and omnipotence.
Pervitin was officially prescribed for soldiers and certainly contributed to the success of the Blitzkrieg and subsequent German invasions. But over time, the addiction and side effects of the drug became fatal to the German army: people, while strongly addicted, experienced the symptoms we know today such as nausea, hallucinations, and diminution of cognitive capacities, anxiety and depression.
To read more about the subject: https://thesecuritydistillery.org/all-articles/pervitin-how-drugs-transformed-warfare-in-1939-45

Pervitin is known in our time as Crystal Meth. As most people know, it is a nowadays an illegal drug which brings misery to many people.
“Meth” is also the Jewish word for “death”, and came to my mind in connection with the Prague legend of the Golem, which has fascinated me for decades. In Jewish folklore the Golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). It is brought to life by writing the word EMETH, meaning “truth”, on its forehead. To disable the Golem, one can erase the E from EMETH, creating METH – “death”. The legend of the Golem inspired the Czech Karel Čapek to write R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the 1920 play that gave the word „robot“ to the world.
The formula METH-EMETH functions as a mechanical method to simulate a consciousness at will. It strongly reminds me of the Nazis practices and of other war leaders, who intend to manipulate their soldiers with narcotics, stirring up their will to assassinate. The drug puts them in a state of trance and less aware of the atrocities they commit. They act as non-human robots do. However, we ought to call this behaviour inhuman.
In my work “Pervitin Power” I try to express these thoughts. The video has been recorded in 360° in a room of the Schwerbelastungskörper, a large cylinder made of concrete in Berlin. It was built in 1941 to study the feasibility of constructing large buildings on the area’s sandy bottom, in preparation for the planned construction nearby of a massive Triumphal Arch, that Hitler wanted to build for his Germania city project. The arch was never built, but the cylinder is still there. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerbelastungsk%C3%B6rper
In this room charged with history, I take on the role of the soldier and discover that my clone is sitting opposite me. After simulating a Pervitin shot and putting on a gas mask (an original WWII item), a change of consciousness takes place. Concepts such as TRUTH, HUMAN, ROBOT, POWER, ALIEN are written on the foreheads of me and my clone. From these emerge animated drawings and images. They move through the space like hallucinations and culminate into a violent climax.

title: Pervitin Power
technique: Experimental 360° video and animation
length: 6’37”
year: 2021
music: “Unmistaken Abstract Marching Band” by Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli*
concept, camera, cast, drawing, animation, effects: Maria Korporal

© Maria Korporal 2021

* Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli is co-founder & Station Manager @ Dots Unlimited Radio, a multichannel webradio dedicated to free music, sound research and new forms of communication and language: www.duradio.net
Knob-twiddler in the field of experimental music, fond of all possible links between sound and psychology, undergoing multiple ambient/noise/psychoacoustic creative projects plus -within the scientific community- currently approaching sounds and frequencies to be applied in several alternative cognitive-behavioral therapies in the treatment of various forms of OCD, freely and originally inspired by some tests conducted by Jean Piaget in the 40s of last century. He has also collaborated with Maria Korporal in the projects The Mind’s Egg, ZoOm into my Room and Is a dot a black hole?

ZoOm into my Room

ZoOm into my Room

Highlights, Recent Works & Highlights, Videos

The video above is a short trailer.
The full version is 4:57 long and is available as pay-per-view on www.visualcontainer.tv

-> click here for the video on VisualcontainerTV


Screenings and presentations:
• March 8-24, 2024: Corporeazione. La sacralità di una lotta moderna, Palazzo Caccia Canali, Sant’Oreste RM, Italy.
• February 23, 2023: Screening of 12 videos by Maria Korporal in the context of Premio Borgo Video, curated by gallery La scala d’oro, Sala Dionigi (Chiesa Valdese), Rome, Italy.
• November 3-18, 2022: IMAGE PLAY ► International Video Art Festival 2022 (PT), curated by Hernando Urrutia.
• April 1, 2022: QRC.PRJCT Official Selection, K.O.T.E.S. (Booze Cooperativa), Athens, Greece.
• December 15-21, 2021: Cineaste International Film Festival of India (CIFFI), Noida, Delhi NCR, India.
• April 23 – May 16, 2021: UPDATE 21, Gallery VBK, Berlin.
• October 30 – November 1, 2020: contemporary art ruhr (C.A.R.), INNOVATIVE ART FAIR, Essen.

Our social and private life has undergone a drastic turn towards digitalisation as a consequence of the pandemic that originated in the beginning of 2020. Human contacts now often are replaced by video-chat Zoom or Jitsi.
In this video I try to show the human experience of loneliness and impotence during their „meetings“ in cyberspace. Even if the light image accurately depicts the person, eye contact is impossible. We look at a screen that shows a simulacra of some other human being and of ourselves.
The video develops seemless in three stages: in the “introduction” images of video chats trasfer proper light beams from chat rooms into real rooms, followed by what could be called the phase of “creation”, in which a lonely person who’s chatting tries to pull the simulacrum out of the light beams, zoom it into her room and bring it to life, and thirdly the phase “longing”, in which the eternal longing for the deep contact with the other is expressed.

In his science fiction novel Neuromancer, published in 1984, William Gibson wrote the revealing phrase: “Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation …” In the last decades we saw this global development coming about, but the Covid virus has accelerated this significantly. However, the video goes further back in time. Cinema lovers will unfailingly recognize the references to „Maschinen-Maria“ of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), another visionary of the technological future. And the profiles in the last scene, which hesitantly approach each other and break away again and again, are ancient Greco-Roman sculptures, simulacra from the cradle of our culture.

title: ZoOm into my Room
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 4’57”
year: 2020
music: “Blue Funk Hypertransit” (excerpts) by Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli
concept, images, animation, effects and montage: Maria Korporal
© Maria Korporal 2020

Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli is co-founder & Station Manager @ Dots Unlimited Radio, a multichannel webradio dedicated to free music, sound research and new forms of communication and language: www.duradio.net
Knob-twiddler in the field of experimental music, fond of all possible links between sound and psychology, undergoing multiple ambient/noise/psychoacoustic creative projects plus -within the scientific community- currently approaching sounds and frequencies to be applied in several alternative cognitive-behavioral therapies in the treatment of various forms of OCD, freely and originally inspired by some tests conducted by Jean Piaget in the 40s of last century.

Stills from the video:

Is a dot a black hole?

Is a dot a black hole?

Artist's Books, Videos, ,

The video departs from a flipbook. While the artist flips through the pages, a big dot comes alive. Or is it a hole? Many other smaller dots come out of it, fly into cyberspace and transform themselves – but at the end they loose themselves in a big spiral and are sucked up again by the black dot in the flipbook.

The music is by Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli. “Knob-Twiddler” in the field of experimental music, fond of all possible links between sound and psychology, currently working on sounds and frequencies to be applied in several alternative cognitive-behavioral therapies in the treatment of various forms of DOC, freely inspired by experiments conducted by Jean Piaget in the 40s of last century.
All sounds of “Is A Dot A Black Hole?” were drawn up on Renoise 3.0.1 _

Belonging to the project HearteartH – see website www.heartearth.rf.gd

title: Is a dot a black hole?
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 2’22”
year: 2015
concept and visuals: Maria Korporal
music: Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli