Francesco Jodice
SECRET TRACES
Review curated by Marco Scotini
Francesco Jodice is among the most careful explorers of the transforming space of the global city. He records the traces of the urban behavior as they were social clues. Using the same methods of a detective, Jodice adopts an investigating look and puts on a chase on territorial level, because every place – as Michel Foucault would say – is always either the effect of a spacial power or a localized field of power connections, which must be revealed.
São Paolo _ City Tellers
film, HDV, 48:00, 2006
City Tellers São Paulo is a private investigation into the many aspects of life in a major metropolis. City Tellers São Paulo presents a preview of a future that is closer than we think. Jodice explores the various aspects of São Paulo: a new economy, alternative jobs, a new way of life. The many stories, while surreal the spectator, are mere fragments of everyday life in a São Paulo, thus demonstrating the evolution of living in the 21st century. The scenery is real, but the experience is of tomorrow. The heart of the project consists in its own narrative and visual identity, which alternates between documentary and visual narrative. Jodice shoots in a “film noir” style; dark, dense tones coupled with solar images in a panoramic format create a highly photographic and unique cinematography.
Hikikomori
film, miniDV, 15:00, 2004
The film explores some aspects of japanese young people social behaviors. Feeling of unease and lack of communication lead to different kind of reaction (skaters; harajuku-kids) or no-action (Otaku; Hikikomori) or annihilation (suicide pact). Hikikomori, the main theme of the film, is a voluntary reclusion pursuing the complete annhilation of communication and relationships. Generally hikikomori are under 30 and with an high level of instruction. Hikikomori live a nocturnal life, in a deep depressive state, far from social responsibilities (school, work, family) and activities.
Rear Window
two short-films, 1:00 , 2006
Two very short-films throughout four major cities (Hong Kong, Milan, Rotterdam, NewYork) spying people through their windows. The project made for TV broadcasting investigates and compares our everyday little gestures in different urban environments in the world. In a way this is a dangerous project because is a real invasion of the privacy of the people; on the other hand it’s a really sincere project which push everyone of us to rethink about the necessity of look at eachother going back to this desire of open the window and see what our neighbour is cooking, which kind of program is looking on tv, which kind of games their kids are playing.
Natura – The Mersey Valley Case
film, 45:00, 2004
In July 2004, Francesco Jodice investigated a series of UFO sightings on the rural fringes of the Mersey Valley. The Mersey Valley Case is the latest addition to Natura, a series of projects that explores the connection between “natural” settings and unnatural phenomena. It consists of a film, a series of large-scale photographs and a set of drawings by UFO witnesses. On one level, Jodice’s choice of subject matter is arbitrary: the UFO sightings are simply a point of entry for a quasi-documentary study of a particular community and place. On another level it is an exploration of the human craving, which endures despite the rapid advance of science and technology, for the mysterious and miraculous, the forever out-of-reach.
Patrick Henry, Open Eye Gallery
Natura – Il caso Montemaggiore
film, 20:00, 2003
There are places in nature where the current stops, were the flow of information, notions, knowledge, values, rites, all the things we share in different ways, the things we could define common sense, all is interrupted, leaving room to a landscape with no rules and no reasons. People go into the woods and commit unbelievable crimes, so cruel and apparently senseless, it is as if this type of sentiment were inherent in Nature. Nature becomes the ideal architecture to suggest, to host such misdeeds, a place where one is allowed to cut the cord of civilized living. Between October 2nd 1998 and November 29th 2002 five elderly people went off walking in the Montemaggiore woods, north of Caserta, never to be found again. The film Natura – Il caso Montemaggiore reconstructs this story.