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ICONOCLAST GAME Video Installation by Lorenzo Pizzanelli Palazzo Venezia, Roma September 12th – 30th 2006
Direction: Fariba Ferdosi and Lorenzo Pizzanelli Video Editing: Sergio Licatalosi Composers Ellectro-acoustic Music: Ivana Busu; Marco Dibeltulu; Stefano Ferrari; Francesco Giomi Production: Museo Trans-Unto Support: Assessorato alla Cultura Comune di Firenze; Assessorato alla Cultura Comune di Siena; Mediateca Regionale Toscana; TRART Rete Regionale Toscana Arte Contemporanea Iconoclast Game is a work of art, involving experimental musicians in the field of electro-acoustics that uses the language and technology of video games to critically analyze Western art history from the Byzantine period to contemporary art. It is software, video, and a public interface. The spectator ‘enters the game’ using the character of Marcel Duchamp or his alter ego Rrose Sélavy in essence interfacing him or herself with the video game. Iconoclast Game is a reflection of Western art history, which in the past represented the ‘sacred’ or figurative form giving rise to the cult of the image. The contemporary language and technology of the video game are an integrated reference to Futurism and the history of the 20th century avant-garde seen in the museums. It is this institutionalized and worshiped history that has killed the inherent creativity of the works. The only way to make sense of our history of art which has become diffused and banal is to liberate it from the habitual ideological incrustation.
From “ART, GAME, MONITOR, AND THE PRESENT” by Raffaele Gavarro, catalogue 2006. “The choice of Marcel Duchamp and naturally Rrose Sélavy (avatars), as points of reference in the game signifies the awareness of Pizzanelli that he is confronted with a probable extreme condition; the end. The modernity of Duchamp is in fact in such a state of renouncement that there is nothing romantic about it, yet it is exactly this that places it in the present. Pizzanelli finds in himself the condition of the artist; every day the artist concludes his own experience in a definitive way, and every day he renews it in an equally indisputable manner. The game develops in twelve levels, in each one we need to liberate a work of art that is ‘institutionalized’, enclosed in a past dimension that is not actually accessible. Before we start we have must choose our male or female avatar, it is only after twelve levels that the two are reunited in a unity, from which we originate as well. While we proceed in the game it is the monitor that assumes the true characteristics of a work of art and in it is the faithful mirror of our present. Pizzanelli fills the role as the absolute possessor of the images and their capacity. Naturally this is also a challenge; in this reflection it is still necessary to see oneself in the present and to discover ourselves differently in the simple reflected image. A work of art continues to help us with this, to understand who we are and where we are, or at least that much.”
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