2014
[ Video 30’ ] FHD
In 2011, after completing my MA, I was desperately searching for a job. The financial crisis and the lack of opportunities lead me to expand the employment research beyond my desires and my skills.
Convincing by the idea, to build anything is necessary to start from somewhere and move forward step by step. I started as an au-pair in a place upon Dartmoor National Park.
This job lasts for five days and, it has followed by a series of daring adventures and journeys across the UK for the rest of 5 months.
During this journey, I have made 'hours of hours' of movie sequences, collected sounds, and noises, through which it enables me to visit places and situations otherwise I would not have seen.
And, during this journey, I came across the popular and heritage culture and traditional stories, in particular, Jerusalem/And did does feet in ancient times, the England's national anthem written by William Blake.
Coincidentally, my journey takes me to the places mentioned or related to the poem itself and William Blakes's life and poetics as well as I was keen to physically explore them.
Casualties and intents became one blurred territory where it was obvious to combine all collected material in one piece, and hazardously translate William Blake's Jerusalem in a personal and modern key.
"Cacophony is a juxtaposition of seemingly uncoordinated sounds, which give birth to dissonant melodies. From such acoustic effect, so sought after during the Twentieth century, from the Futurists to Karlheinz Stockhausen, stems the first chapter of Lucia Barbagallo's video project Jerusalem cacophonia/ I. Sounds are backed up by images, in a metaphorical and literary journey to poet William Blake's Jerusalem. The video was made with makeshift means — the artist explains — crossing by foot England and the places described in Blake's poem Did those feet in ancient time, England's second national anthem». Cacophony is intrinsic to the journey itself. Desolate frontier landscapes, where an apparent sense of abandonment is intensified by the pounding of invisible waves, the sea traceable in rotten silhouettes of small fisherman's boats stranded on a hillside. The back-ground noise — disembodied screams, a roar of an aircraft through the sky, animate the stillness of Glastonbury's bucolic landscape, interchanged — sometimes abruptly, others after long dark moments — with urban outskirts views, those of the so-called commuter towns from the Thatcher era, scattered through London's less privileged neighborhoods. The alternation between rural and urban landscapes — the artist follows up — it's both a con-sequence of the journey and a deliberate choice, dictated by the intention to measure my body within a certain space, tracing its mutation and experiencing its change.
It's a tribute to the England that was and the one that will be, and to the imagery that that country has given us in time. Many images recall the work of directors like Derek Jarman». The physical journey is parallel to an inner one, which becomes a soundtrack to the visual course, driving the viewer to empathize with the artist/pilgrim. «Those are the tunes that accompanied my journey. The here and now», Barbagallo explains. Jerusalem cacophonia/ I is the result of a long and difficult journey, one of the kind that leaves its mark on a traveller, and changes him or her. The final video was edited out of 30 hours of footage — the artists wraps up — shot in a 5 month period.The quest of the New Jerusalem, described by Blake, becomes a journey through Barbagallo's eyes and ears, alert and sensitive witness to the intrinsic cacophony to a metamorphosis, experienced by the landscape as much as by human beings”. ~ Text by Andrea Rodi, Insideart, November 2014
This experience itself was genuinely very hard. After the Au-Pair experience in Devon and London ended, I lived in a shelter hostel for 3 weeks, and I worked as Kitchen Porter in a pub in central London.
I used the only day-off of the week for exploring places by hitch-hiking, hiking and public transports.
Despite the unpleasant and daring experiences I had, my life won't be the same now without this journey.
Convincing by the idea, to build anything is necessary to start from somewhere and move forward step by step. I started as an au-pair in a place upon Dartmoor National Park.
This job lasts for five days and, it has followed by a series of daring adventures and journeys across the UK for the rest of 5 months.
During this journey, I have made 'hours of hours' of movie sequences, collected sounds, and noises, through which it enables me to visit places and situations otherwise I would not have seen.
And, during this journey, I came across the popular and heritage culture and traditional stories, in particular, Jerusalem/And did does feet in ancient times, the England's national anthem written by William Blake.
Coincidentally, my journey takes me to the places mentioned or related to the poem itself and William Blakes's life and poetics as well as I was keen to physically explore them.
Casualties and intents became one blurred territory where it was obvious to combine all collected material in one piece, and hazardously translate William Blake's Jerusalem in a personal and modern key.
"Cacophony is a juxtaposition of seemingly uncoordinated sounds, which give birth to dissonant melodies. From such acoustic effect, so sought after during the Twentieth century, from the Futurists to Karlheinz Stockhausen, stems the first chapter of Lucia Barbagallo's video project Jerusalem cacophonia/ I. Sounds are backed up by images, in a metaphorical and literary journey to poet William Blake's Jerusalem. The video was made with makeshift means — the artist explains — crossing by foot England and the places described in Blake's poem Did those feet in ancient time, England's second national anthem». Cacophony is intrinsic to the journey itself. Desolate frontier landscapes, where an apparent sense of abandonment is intensified by the pounding of invisible waves, the sea traceable in rotten silhouettes of small fisherman's boats stranded on a hillside. The back-ground noise — disembodied screams, a roar of an aircraft through the sky, animate the stillness of Glastonbury's bucolic landscape, interchanged — sometimes abruptly, others after long dark moments — with urban outskirts views, those of the so-called commuter towns from the Thatcher era, scattered through London's less privileged neighborhoods. The alternation between rural and urban landscapes — the artist follows up — it's both a con-sequence of the journey and a deliberate choice, dictated by the intention to measure my body within a certain space, tracing its mutation and experiencing its change.
It's a tribute to the England that was and the one that will be, and to the imagery that that country has given us in time. Many images recall the work of directors like Derek Jarman». The physical journey is parallel to an inner one, which becomes a soundtrack to the visual course, driving the viewer to empathize with the artist/pilgrim. «Those are the tunes that accompanied my journey. The here and now», Barbagallo explains. Jerusalem cacophonia/ I is the result of a long and difficult journey, one of the kind that leaves its mark on a traveller, and changes him or her. The final video was edited out of 30 hours of footage — the artists wraps up — shot in a 5 month period.The quest of the New Jerusalem, described by Blake, becomes a journey through Barbagallo's eyes and ears, alert and sensitive witness to the intrinsic cacophony to a metamorphosis, experienced by the landscape as much as by human beings”. ~ Text by Andrea Rodi, Insideart, November 2014
This experience itself was genuinely very hard. After the Au-Pair experience in Devon and London ended, I lived in a shelter hostel for 3 weeks, and I worked as Kitchen Porter in a pub in central London.
I used the only day-off of the week for exploring places by hitch-hiking, hiking and public transports.
Despite the unpleasant and daring experiences I had, my life won't be the same now without this journey.
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