The theme of the different works is the object, the chair, used as a symbol of social relationships. The chair was introduced in the West to differentiate social positions. It was initially designed to accommodate one person and was used exclusively by priests and rulers; it was the prerogative of aristocrats to differentiate themselves from the masses and sit apart, as if on a throne. Later adopted by the masses, the chair retains its natural capacity to determine, according to its position and distribution in space, different types of relationships between people. The show uses the nature of this object and the position of the body in relation to it, to stimulate greater awareness of the relational dynamics and how they are influenced by minimal physical and spatial changes.
The show includes: the interactive installation Coreografia Sociale (Social Choreography), the sculpture Sedia-Fossile, Dinosediasauro (Chair-Fossil, Dinochairsaurus) in the park and the photographic exhibition Sedeo Ergo Sum (I sit and therefore I am) which gives its name to the exhibition pathway. Here few extracts from the critical text “The Chair-Vertebra” by Alena Alexandrova, that accompanies the exhibition: Sedeo Ergo Sum "Public spaces are characterized by a particular scenography. By defining the position of viewing, which is equally important as the roles unfolding onstage, chairs are very infrastructure of the spectacle. […] Caterina Pecchioli’s photographs portray the position of viewing, listening or speaking and not the social behavior or the spectacle itself. The space of the audience is a literal, spatial counter-point to the stage – the place of a fictional world. In this sense the photographs are a counter-image of the shared fiction of theatre or politics”. Social Choreography "The scenography of social spaces portrayed in Sedeo Ergo Sum – I sit and therefore I am, is set in motion, it becomes a social choreography. The environment of the interactive installation questions the structures, the assigned positions, roles and status suggested by the first set of scenes. Here the social habit is transformed into an open gesture […] Actions like – explaining, listening, praying or waiting are deprived of their usual meaning, and can be re-enacted, objectified, experimented with. […] This micro-theatre of viewing while doing is the very heart of the interactive installation. […] We are simultaneously the object and the subject of the piece".
"Chair-Fossil, Dinochairsaurus, a sculpture that takes the mediating object of the chair out of its usual use, and transforms it into a vertebra or a bone forming the remains of a giant animal. It is a ruin of some sort, but not a skeleton of a prehistoric monster. It is an artificial fossil, the backbone of a social body”. The show is the development of research begun by Caterina Pecchioli in 2010 at Scompiglio with the performance-installation Relazioni a Catena (Relational Effect) with the performers Costanza Givone and Marie Goeminne; work that is presented in the show in a Flip-Book version. Invited to recreate the work as a metamorphosis in the SPE – Performance and Exhibition Space of the estate/Scompiglio, Caterina continued her research in February 2013, during a period of residence and the creation of a family workshop on the theme of interpersonal relationships, together with Costanza Givone.
Sedeo Ergo Sum is a show in the context of In Relazione Opening 12-13 April, visible till 27 July 2014
Featuring also: Solitudine da Camera #1 – #2 – #3 by Cecilia Bertoni and Claire Guerrier with Carl G. Beukman
and the installation In sosta by f.marquespenteado
Produced by Tenuta Dello Scompiglio
INFO:
Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio
Via di Vorno, 67, 55012 Capannori Lucca
+39 0583 971475
info.ac@delloscompiglio.org
delloscompiglio.org