Human confined behaviour leading to suspiciously high levels of creativity
A print newspaper, some time in the early 20’s, maybe
Featured Art / Illustration by Rockastanski
The pretentiousness in me is judging the principle light source in your Zoom set-up, you can be sure. The edges of your face are soft and drifting into the creased shadows of grain from the wall you failed to notice, and I am disappointed, for reasons unknown. I’m disappointed that we so often fail to notice walls.
A note on confinement. A broad word meaning in this case the inability to move anywhere but interiorly, and hence here, internally, within self, you have all the freedom of movement gifted unwittingly. We have been creating. Best of all, in a lotus tower, temporarily absent of ego.
The end of digiArts fest was imperfect – I took with an abdominal injury because I tried to bear too much weight and was unable to smooth the corners of schedule and organisation – but it nonetheless met the chaos of life with the chaos of art, and allowed a spectacle for 5 artists out of a mountain of others, for over 2000 digital visitors. With love from the squirrel in the machine, I delivered 2 of the 5 with awards of £50 each, as little as it is this time, to help them pay the lotus seller.
The Judge’s Choice Award
DIANA ROGAGELS
for their video art, received the highest score from the judges (DIGIARTS FEST 2020) (artist site)
The Audience Award
ROBERT JARVIS
for their sound piece, most liked by our cyber festival-goers (digiArts fest 2020) (ARTIST SITE)
To all those who came, thank you. To my assistants and judges who helped to run the festival, thank you. I was lifted that our definition of confinement could be challenged by the unrelenting motion of artists.
The entanglement of confinement and censorship
We have a feature on an artist from the shortlist, who takes opposing nudity censorship both in the digital space, and in our global society, to the next level to make a pertinent point about self identification. Marrone Marrone‘s short film and social project “Get Rid of This, Facebook” depicts full frontal nudity and collects nude images of corporeal pride from people around the world to challenge the way we think about our own nakedness. He taunts the regulation of social media networks with that rule-offending one-liner “get rid of this”, but tells me that it’s really all about the audience.
The point is trying to understand that showing a body uncovered is not necessarily linked to mischievousness nor is [it] bound to displaying sexual overtone whereas many other aspects of our grossly veiled contemporary behaviours are actually strictly related to this gasping will of sex or social appearance.
MM
He explains that the idea for the film came to him hauled up in a Romanian student halls – he’s actually Italian – quarantined in close proximity to strangers from all over the world, where he spent most of his time trailing through social media and came to questioning our perception of ideas.
This forced closeness has been to me a possibility to experience how hard freely expressing one’s self-opinion is without being misunderstood and consequently misjudged, [for] as long as I’ve always supported a filter-free communication beyond the standards of religious-based consciousness and morality.
MM
In attempt to find a way that his dorm mates and his potential project participants could understand his point of view on the censorship of the naked body, he began to sporadically enter the communal areas naked, following the view that his body is a pure representation of our life-long stories as humans in physical form and without any intent but to be as himself. He documents these particular moments on camera, to edit the collection of observations into the final short film. The reaction from others, after a time, was surprisingly more positive.
I’m glad for having received the ideal and material support of some of my mates in there, aiding me capturing and appearing in the shots, pushing me to step further and not to let me down for the substantial amount of rocksteady bad critics. … The general aim so became to make a product as water-clear, as dense, as raging, as censor-unattackable we could, making the camera shots, the music tracks, the words, the body movements, and the entire iconology of the work express together the anger and incredulity for the paradoxical biased common wisdom the world has on nudity.
MM
The film and project are available on his instagram here (at least, if they don’t get censored) and I needn’t have to tell you that it contains the open human form.
Facebook is among many social networks with strict non-nudity regulations, and frequently remove content in violation of this definition. He acknowledges that Facebook may be a bigger monster to tackle when it comes to censorship – and that there are other types of censorship posing great threats to the digital and offline realm – but is hopeful that the people themselves can spend a thought on how we look at ourselves.
Being that we travel with our bodies stuck on us since before humanity has thrived, it could be finally the right time to help this other freeing mechanism to trigger, maybe helping more people better understand the shell they own and how many different ways there are to see it and to let it speak without any fear of being judged.
MM
Is it at all surprising that each of us have found that our temporary confinement has informed a new freedom of thought, from whatever school of philosophy it may derive? Perhaps it’s something we should leave room for when hedging back to normality, perplexed and enamoured by systems and sounds, redefining our individual values. Marrone Marrone certainly challenges you to do just that.
