SetUp – Contemporary Art Fair 2017 | 27 – 29 January | Autostazione – Bologna
For S.O.S. SetUp open space, SetUp’s section for experimental projects, Peninsula exhibits the video installation 8Min20sec – On Time Travelling by Ilaria Biotti. The project explores the theme of balance through the practice of mindfulness; the ability to focus one’s awareness on the present moment, in the balance between the before and after. Mindfulness is one of the practices mostly used in the last decade by contemporary corridors of power, including Google and the Pentagon, to help employees reduce stress, be happy, and therefore to produce more. What happens when an emotion is fostered in terms of a tool for control? 8Min20Sec – On Time Travelling starts off with a visit to the Nenthead Mines (Cumbria, UK), an archaeological site covered with the remains of lead and zinc mining industries. Wooden fences crop up among the plants and the rare lichens growing on the Landfills. Mineshafts live inside these fences. Often invisible on the surface, mineshafts are deep and narrow holes that allow access to the mine. Among the tools of persuasion used by mineshafts, there is the reference of the “The Time Machine” (1895) by H.G. Wells, one of the first novels to introduce the concept of traveling in time. Mineshafts ask you, passersby, to stop your constant mental journey and stay in the here and now. To stay in the here and now, you must avoid everyday forms of time traveling, such as that of the sunlight hitting the skin, which transports you 8 minutes and 20 seconds into the past from where it has come.
SetUp – Contemporary Art Fair
Autostazione – Piazza XX Settembre 6, 40126 Bologna
Opening hours:
Friday 27th: 5:00 pm – 01:00 am
Saturday 28th: 5:00 pm – 01:00 am
Sunday 29th: 12.00 pm – 10:00 pm
Entry ticket: 7 €
SetUp website: http://www.setupcontemporaryart.com/2017/