J* acts

ACT#1

Memory JEST

Memory JEST is the traditional memory card game applied to the images of JEST and its visual tricks.

The recto is the image of the sailors seen from above (also in the book card series).

The verso is a selection of images that suited the small format. They very often present small variations at a closer look. This makes the memory game even more difficult.

 ACT#2

Chinese whispers

The book JEST does not include  captions.

They originate from the internationally popular game, revisited for an interactive installation with the audience.

Starting with the observation of an image from the book, we will create a  potentially endless list of  captions. It does not matter whether they are plausible or false.

The only real caption will also be among them.

ACT#3

Tempesta (Storm)

Two images of two different storms are placed one upon the other, each composed  of 200 rectangular fragments.

A glass flask, filled with water, will be placed in front of the wall and will reflect the image, tipped over.

A woman removes one fragment at a time, a man-created sound of a storm is in the background -soundscape by Alessandro Bosetti with a Byungjun Kwon instrument-.

The two images dissolve into each other analogically. The fragments will fall on the floor randomly, as if after a wind blow.

ACT#4

Kaleidoscope JEST

A series of photographs in the book have been realized using a gigantic kaleidoscope designed and built for this purpose.

Kaleidoscope JEST employs the same instruments and technique for a workshop with  kids and families.

The workshop, led by the artist, will use a selection of photographs from the book and a number of original prints that the kids will choose from their family archives.

Through the visual experimentation with the kaleidoscope, the original prints will magically turn into  new images.

The final result can be presented in video and / or projection of images and / or prints.

ACT#5

EVENTAILS -Fans-

Eventails is an act that relates both to dance and to photography, inspired by a group image showing women of different ages, all carrying a handheld fan.

The performance (that will later be an installation): a performer stands in complete darkness with a white handheld fan. Objects, photographs and three-dimensional paper structures almost magically appear around the performer, among perspective changes and optical illusions. The performance will be accompanied by the audio broadcast of a series of real secret stories by different women, gathered by Ilaria Turba both in France and in Italy.

The Fans Act is a 20-minutes performance.

The performance is written with Ambra Senatore and has been produced by the CCNN  Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes.

ACT#6

Lady T JEST

Lady T is a machine to turn THAUMATROPES, a word of Greek origin meaning “wonder turner”. The thaumatrope is an optical toy of Victorian age, considered an important antecedent of animation.

Two different, complementary images are on the two sides of a disk. Turning the disk, the two images merge, creating a third ‘impossible’ image, which results from the persistence of the vision on our retina.

The audience will have round sections of photographs selected from JEST and will associate them freely to discover how they can merge into a third image, visible only through the Lady T machine,

Lady T is designed by Mammafotogramma

ACT#8

Radio JEST

Radio JEST is a real historic radio which has, instead of the radio frequences, a timeline from 1870 up to today.

Years correspond to JEST time lapse. Moving the tuning knob, the pointer will activate an archive of sounds created specifically for this radio, that will activate and broadcast a collection of sounds associated to the images of JEST.

INSTALLATION: the radio will be placed in a room in front of the chronological projection of the JEST images. People will have the possibility to move the tuning knob, thus freely associating images and sound.