“Tim Hall’s latest book is How America Died.
Buy it here: http://undiepress.timhallbooks.com)
By Jason Michel
I’ve been unlucky enough to know Luigi for a number of years now. He is an Italian, from Genova, living in London. His photography is something special. Decadent and, at times, has an everyday Surreality. It reminds me of listening to Madder Rose with him over a beer in London. He is a wry & miserable bugger, though.
LC: From the nose.
JM: I’ve seen your nose and I have to say, it is inspirational. I’ve noticed that you use a lot of masks in your Portraits, what’s with that?
LC: Thanks for your question. Now I need to think, and you know I hate doing that. Masks. They don’t hide the identity. They reveal it. They create an identity where there is no identity. Our social avatar (the face we paint, the hair we cut, the body we shape) is not us. There is no us, to be precise. And this disturbing vacuum is revealed in all its inescapable horror when we wrap it in a solid, clear, coloured, definite structure: the mask. Like insects, like cicadas, we need an exoskeleton to move, laugh and sing and live, made of plastic, cardboard or simply sick imagination, as you prefer. Masks. I got one from my cousin.
JM: It is interesting that you mention that “there is no us”. This is an old idea, that goes back to Buddhist thought and modern neuroscience is showing us that it may in fact be true. What influences outside of photography have found their way into your particular art? By this I mean, books, other artists, music?
LC: Influences. In photography. A classic one, sorry for being so banal: Cartier-Bresson. I like the composition, the equilibrium of shapes and lines and focus points, the delicate tension, the irony. I like the photoshop artists, like Dragan. I like painting: Renaissance masters, like Raffaello. And for the portraits, may I dare to mention Rembrandt? His masterful way of handling light and darkness? Sharp details and softness? Music. There’s nothing more visual than music. I like dark, gloomy, gothic soft musical textures. Try Hope Sandoval, try Cranes. Dim the lights. Close your eyes. There’s no picture like that. Low saturation, diffused background, high contrast. if you want to smile, a slightly sad smile, listen to Paolo Conte. Books? I can’t read …
JM: Okay, last question … Luigi, how important is place for you? You are Italian, from Genova, yet you live in London. Why did you choose Deare Olde Londinium to live? Grazie tante! Ciao!
LC: The city is both a physical and a metaphysical space. A city is a background for your pictures, portraits or landscapes. It sets the mood and the rules. It gives you subjects: bridges or people. I was born in an old and dying city. Genova is dying of old age. You can walk in the alleys, and get a sense of history, of the past, but no sense of future. The present is confused, still, frozen in amber. People live awaiting. Godot is not coming yet. And when the wind is strong, the voice of the sea grows louder, and you forget where you are, who you are. I missed that sometimes. I missed my sea. I missed my dirty alleys, and small vineries. So I feel out of scale here in London, but then there is the metaphysical aspect. London offers me the gift of the long tail, a chance to socialise around an interest, whatever it is. In this case, photography. I chose London for this. It gave me, and probably will still give me (for a while, at least), the hope of being surprised.
Luigi’s magnificent work can be found: HERE!
Ed Mironiuk paints women. Curvy & delectable Goddesses peering down on us weak male-of-the-species. His art looks back to The Golden Age of Pin-Ups and drags them through a Pop Culture mudbath to his own style of Low Bizarro Art, as his website says – “a hybrid of pop trash and fetish culture kissed by Dr. Moreau himself”. Sounds interesting? He agreed to a Conversation with yours truly.
Pomegranates? How easy are those to find for a Stellar’s Jay? Not fuckin’ very. But a good martini is worth lugging huge fruit in one’s talons. A good martini is worth just about any inconvenience. If you’re a simp. Dirty Bird prefers to simply lift the juice from the nearest convenient store rather than pick the pulp from around the seeds after a capricious flight home from the pomegranate field. Wherever you get your heady pom-juice, it makes for a sweet-tart refreshing sort of cocktail. Pomtinis will add lift to your flight. But be careful, they go down easy.
Dirty Bird is always on the look-out for something to cool him down on hot summer days. One afternoon, outside his secret cabin in the forest, Dirty was drinking martinis—as he likes to. He passed out after staggering toward the lavender patch to inhale their uplifting odors. When he came-to, he’d saved his cocktail (of course), though it was full of lavender blossoms. He drank it down after doing his best to blow the purple flower-cups out of his glass. Its flowery finish refreshed Dirty like sunshine spring-water splashing off chiming stones. He went straight to his mixing-lab, snatching up a glassful of flowers on his way. After a day of experimenting, many recipes were born. This one with lemonade comes closest to the refreshing experience of awakening in one’s garden, surprised and delighted by the luck of letting Nature pick a bed of flowers for one’s nap.
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Be Calm and Count to 7, 2008, Iran
Psycho Guru, 2009, USA
The Crimson Mask, 2009, USA*
The cool thing about film festivals is that one can discover hidden, rare, and very innovative films that might not otherwise be widely seen. Along with feature-length films, tons of short films are shown and some are experimental and non-narrative. Unless you search out such films on the internet, you probably won’t see them. It’s good to give them a venue. It’s also good to give indie dramatic features a chance to find an audience and be reviewed… and maybe pick up prizes and distribution. Continue reading Celluloid -The Story So Far …
OM ~ Al Cisneros (bassist, formerly of the Doom Metal Gods « Sleep ») & Emil Amos (drummer, also with the mighty Grails) ~ are my kinda band. Imagine if John Paul Jones, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward & John Bonham went on a journey around Kashmir & smoked far too of the local greenery & ended up in some mad Tantric monastry in Shambhala & decided to do a concert.
That is what OM sound like to me.
PULP METAL MAGAZINE 