Phonemenology
by Riccardo Benassi, Italy, Germany, France 2018, 94'
SCREENPLAY: Riccardo Benassi   SHOOTING:  Riccardo Benassi, Pietro Trizzullo, Luca Svanera
PHOTOGRAPHY AND EDITING: No Elevator Studio   CGI AND MOTION GRAPHICS: Jurij Magoga, Magda Tuzinkiewicz, Sara Carraro 
MUSIC: Demo @ Studio Ostile, Sleazy Kid, Milton Alice, OLYVETTY, Gnuswvs, Dj Soul Solgia   SOUND: Riccardo Benassi, No Elevator Studio
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Riccardo Benassi, Mirko Rizzi.   LANGUAGE: vo: English; sub: Italian

Schermo dell'Arte - Archivio Film   Presented at Lo schermo dell’arte 2020 

Riccardo Benassi analyses technology’s impact on our relationship with space, reflecting on how technological devices have radically changed structures for living and organising reality, from architecture to politics, from cultural production to consumption. The video essay Phonemenology’s five chapters are a journey across different stages: from how the perception and consumption of music has changed since cell phone ringtones entered our lives, to the narration of European gangsta-rap - a musical genre characterised by a voice that tells a personal story and video filmed in the suburbs - passing through gentrification, the circulation of goods in a globalised society up to techno-privatisation. Objects, 3D animations and textual parts make the artist’s thoughts explicit on the screen at several levels, in a continuously changing setting - from the home, to the European suburbs, from the waters of an unknown sea, to the countryside - composing a phenomenology of contemporary interfaces.

Riccardo Benassi (Cremona 1982, lives and works in Berlin). In his early years, a prominent figure in the European underground music scene, he has taught Sound Design at the Accademia di Belle Arti Carrara in Bergamo since 2013, and has been a guest lecturer at NABA in Milan since 2019. Recent exhibitions: ZKM (2020), Center d’Art Contemporain Genève (2019); ICC Melbourne (2019), MAMbo Bologna (2018). Among his publications: Sicilia Bambaataa (NERO Publishing 2015) and Morestalgia (NERO Publishing 2020).

Selected Filmography:
Techno Casa, 2011; Autostrada Verticale, 2009; Nights Erase Days Erase Nights (OLYVETTY),2008.
 

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