OKOMdsu: Teaser - Guerra Olimpica
17. – 26. May 2023
Opening: Tuesday, 16. May 2023, 6pm
gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg
11. – 18. June 2023
Opening: Sunday, 11. June 2023, 4pm
Basel Social Club, Mauerstrasse, 4057 Basel
This exhibition presents the first institutional display of OKOMdsu, a research and design studio for conventional and speculative industries that merges disciplines by using cinematic storytelling as a design tool. The newly produced work invites play with movie research content through a set of interactive digital canvases fixed with a custom designed control device called «Nedo». This setting is a trailer for the upcoming movie «Guerra Olimpica», which depicts the interwoven biographies of three female athletes during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The portraits of the women are bound up in the political, social, legal, technological and physical contexts that dominate the highest level of global sports competition and performance. Jeanne, Cleopatra and Durova embody war, violence and sacredness. The film draws out how these inherent tensions lead each athlete to the brink of failure. The three stories explore International Law, Ergogenic Aids and Animal Rights. Sports are about exceeding boundaries. Here, fencing, judo and rifle shooting are investigated in a visual exploration of the media and economies they encompass, from the food supplement factories to the fabric of a fencing lamé. The story explores the ecosystem of contemporary professional sports in a variable spectrum of narrative registers – comedy at times tipping into darker tones, the limits of humor, speed and pressure blending into one another. Shot in live action with, at times, animated characters; the film puts the contemporary visual realm to the test, mixing live action, CGI and animation, crafting an interface between the frailty of humankind and the very latest digital technologies.
The exhibition’s joypad, «Nedo», is a prop used by one of the main characters in the opening scene. The visual script of the movie, composed by numerous annotated diptychs, challenges the current language of the ‘movie teaser’. Instead of looking at a small part of the finished product, it explores the totality of the narrative in its developing state. The set-up of the space immerses the viewers into the world of «Guerra Olimpica». In the middle of the exhibition space, a deconstructed cockpit converging technology, imagery and narrative leaves the audience wanting more. «Teaser» plays with the curiosity of the spectators and their imagination. The digital canvases in the space are electronic ink displays scaled as movie posters. A technology paramount to describe their dual nature: an interactive device connected to electricity in order to explore the «Teaser», yet within the realm of a movie poster which, much like any static painting, has no need for electronic power to exist in its space.
'Movie as a Design Tool' enables a collective process of the transformation of reality: an hybrid state necessary to navigate between story-telling and the design of tools, comics, spaces, vehicles and garments. The process of movie-making is subject to the definition of autonomous projects that aim to exist in our lives, not just as mere elements of the film. The film project as a platform for generating and developing its own by-products uses cinema’s unique ability to generate realities which can persist in many different industries.
Created by Giulio Bertelli
Designed by OKOMdsu
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Technical support by Materea
Photos by Flavio Karrer
