Marco Brambilla Studio
UPCOMING
Dresden
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Dresden is a multi-channel video installation by Marco Brambilla that explores the themes of sensation, effect, and how the act of looking has been transformed by the current age of mediated images. The subject matter is specially significant given the current media landscape concerning the war in Ukraine, with its constant data streams on social media such as Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, etc
Brambilla’s installation juxtaposes two source materials, the first being footage of the Asisi panometer shot on location outside Dresden, an attraction which provides a 3600 panoramic facsimile of the bombing to visitors comprised of mostly German tourists. The second source is footage from the seminal 1972 science fiction film ‘SlaughterHouse-Five’ based on the book by Kurt Vonnegut, who experienced the horrors of the same bombing on the ground first-hand. Dresden seeks to amplify the surreal combination of the horrors of war with the conditions of a contemporary tourist attraction. The piece questions whether our present time, often dictated by consumerist fantasies and entertainment has diluted our ability to experience the true gravity of such events. By allowing the camera to play third party witness to an exchange between the present and past, Dresden crucially takes a step back to examine the treatment of devastation as spectacle; Compelling us to ask: to what degree are our emotions being mediated by present-day media and entertainment and are we no longer able to distinguish between fact and fiction?
Brambilla’s installation juxtaposes two source materials, the first being footage of the Asisi panometer shot on location outside Dresden, an attraction which provides a 3600 panoramic facsimile of the bombing to visitors comprised of mostly German tourists. The second source is footage from the seminal 1972 science fiction film ‘SlaughterHouse-Five’ based on the book by Kurt Vonnegut, who experienced the horrors of the same bombing on the ground first-hand. Dresden seeks to amplify the surreal combination of the horrors of war with the conditions of a contemporary tourist attraction. The piece questions whether our present time, often dictated by consumerist fantasies and entertainment has diluted our ability to experience the true gravity of such events. By allowing the camera to play third party witness to an exchange between the present and past, Dresden crucially takes a step back to examine the treatment of devastation as spectacle; Compelling us to ask: to what degree are our emotions being mediated by present-day media and entertainment and are we no longer able to distinguish between fact and fiction?