Joe Cimino

When Light Takes Form

2021-2022

4k video and sound

Full film 17'32"

Video excerpt 3’05”

What can noticing the transformation of light taking its form on a surface tell us about the history of a space? The memories it contains inside? What is the impact it has on our lives?

When Light Takes Form is a film that explores the experience of seeing by noticing the traces light leaves in a contained space. In a home.

For over six months, the accumulation of photographic and video documentation of these traces has developed into an artistic research endeavor through investigating these moments by involving my family members and incorporating their perspectives. All of whom share the same living space as me and are exposed to these moments of light taking it’s form throughout different times of day, seasons, and weather patterns.

Acting as participants and collaborators to this project each family member was asked a series of questions regarding the space that we co-inhabit. Their feelings, memories, and opinions about the space all serve as the recorded data that informed the video choices made and refined into categories entitled:

Spaces, Color and Light, Objects, Feeling, and Memory.

These categories serve as chapters to a story unfolding over time. One that focuses on noticing how light takes its form inside a space, leaving its traces, and what that says about the memories, history, and existence of the space itself.

Leviathan is a series of works that explores the material history of oil and resources harvested from animals during the height of the industrial revolution into contemporary times. Focusing on the history of whaling, an industry ripe with wide-scale exploitation of whales and workers alike, these works view this history through an empathetic lens to fathom how this “lucrative idea” devastated ocean ecology, and human lives alike. With the discovery of petroleum decades away, whale oil was used as a light source for candles throughout cities but mainly as machine lubrication for factories littered throughout the world. Shown to be the only “good” lubricant, whalers were sent to harvest as many whales as possible for maximum payout for those sponsoring the voyages, and who benefitted directly from the industries. Therefore, a war on the leviathans of the sea was waged at the expense of whalers, previous sustainable practices, and whales. Today, the effect this industry has had on the environment is still strong and the overproduction of plastics, cheap artifacts, and industrial fishing has only increased the rumble of mechanical vessels in the oceans, replacing the once bountiful whale pods that filled the seas with mechanized behemoths of commerce.

These collages, both moving and static, are built through the layering of transparent moments of history, through images and sounds, which allows for the scenes to blend into one another and interact. Bringing the past and present into a singular moment. Throughout the compositions, there is always a whale present, both seen and left as abstracted oil slick-like coloration, which hails as a reminder of how the historical reverberations of this time still affect the present day.

How can the history of a geographical location be preserved through memory?

Is the image a true way of seeing or a manufactured truth? In an age where one can be teleported virtually to any place, how can we further understand the history of those locations?

Transparencies (Untitled Historical Investigations) responds to these questions by attempting to visualize a way of understanding information regarding history, place, time, and geographical context in the form of visual research. Crafted on transparent papers, the blending of trees, ruins, maps, and locations become one again. These twelve multi-layered transparencies are compiled as a series

of visual notes and maps of information building momentum as an ongoing process. Replacing structures with ones lost and tying the distances of coastlines together by stacking one on top of the other, these images become visual mappings of layered historical traces that follow the crucial geographical locations of Afghanistan, Germany, Italy, South Africa, and the United States.

Information on these locations was gathered through found images, Google Earth, maps, writings, and personal photographs, as a means of seeing multiple perspectives of these places. Google Earth has been a fantastic and terrifying way of traveling the globe near instantaneously.

It becomes easy to effortlessly plugin coordinates and fast travel to a location, seeing the landscape in 360°. It also beckons the question of whether the reality that is being seen behind the screen is true or not. From ancient forests to recently abandoned gold mines, how can history be understood through an image?

2021

Digital Collage Printed on Transparency Papers

4k single-channel video and sound

4'36"

Burning is a single-channel video work that explores the relationship between patterned sounds in a natural environment interwoven with noise emitted from industrial labor, revealing more about its environmental consequences. Set in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a location riddled with a history of smithing and lumber harvesting, the forest is portrayed in a black and white, ashen veneer that resembles an unknown time and alludes to the aftermath of a fire. The slow-moving trees and subtle movements suggest activity below that goes unseen yet overheard. The repetitive sounds of metal, woodworking, and burning, coming from an unknown direction, are paired against the sonic rhythms created by forest creatures. In turn, it creates a musical-like composition set to the ambiance of the forest that beckons a feeling of danger and displacement.

Burning is a response to the consistent natural disasters present and points to the reasons that have allowed them to get out of hand.

Monochromes aims to explore what is seen and unseen in the peripheries of our vision, further investigating the overlooked aspects of life and the attached banalities left over in suburbia. The leftover remnants of a consumerist lifestyle beckon the question of not only sustainability, but the unknown future to come. In The Heart of the Problem, the subject in the moving image alludes to an industrial complex pumping toxins into the air, which is recognizable in these suburban areas. In What if We Repeat Our Mistakes, the neighborhood engulfed by red light refers to the now more constant environmental disasters and humanities absurd approach to colonize Mars. Whereas, in the works Ebb and Flow and On the Fence, the subjects are more abstracted, serving as the object(s) in which one might overlook in their day to day routine. Through a fog of color, these objects and environments become clear and hidden over time, concealing the subtle movements embedded within the videos.

Monochromes, looks to take these mundane scenarios and scale them up, enforcing their importance, and allowing one to bask in the projected light that engulfs the space.

What happens to the stories of our families when no one is left to share them? When all we have is a reconstruction, how accurate is the story? How reliable are our recordings of the present? What can we hope to keep for the future?

Never Saw Her Sad is a series of seven trailers that allude to the anticipation of a final film, except the film does not exist. Created under a false production company and utilizing the familiar format of a movie trailer, this project compiles interviews, home videos, archival photographs, and recently filmed videos to explore these questions. There is never a clear indication about the dates these stories take place, where they are located, or who the people in the trailers are. Only fragments of these complex stories remain and leave these questions unanswered for the viewer to fill in the gaps for themselves.

My fascination with learning and safeguarding my mother’s family history ignited the research process of acquiring information and visuals as a container for these memories to be remembered. Guided through conducting interviews with my mother regarding her childhood, family, immigration story, and earliest memories, I was able to form a stronger understanding of what my family’s history was like, especially since most of these moments have not been photographed or documented. To fill in gaps of memory and perspectives, we worked with family members on my mother’s side about what they remembered from their childhoods and what they knew about the family’s history. Their memories and preserved photographs formed the foundation of the story that my mother and I would build on months later with new memories and recalled ones through a final interview process. This dialog serves as the main narration guiding the trailers.

Through this project, we were both helping each other to reconstruct this almost forgotten family history, emphasizing the importance of passing down stories and information before they are gone forever.

To view all of the trailers, click the link below.

Unknown Studios

Drawing is a fundamental part of my artistic research and practice, as it provides the foundations for the beginning visions of my subject matter and projects. These selected drawings are all conceptually linked through their investigations into the past by working from digitally distorted image references. However, I find this type of distortion – of the past and from the preservation of technology – to be exceptionally interesting as material to work from.

The idea of distortion is something that has been present in my recent works and these drawings are all made from references that are, in their own different ways, subject to digital and time distortion. The images of ruins and landscapes are of different geographic regions alongside the coast of the Mediterranean and were obtained via Google Earth searches and drawn from the results of what was shown on my screen, usually digital artifacts, and taken from those documenting the coastlines. The drawings of my parents as children are rooted in my exploration of family memory, and the effects of cultural evolution on human development, especially within the kin-based relationships that families have developed from. These drawings are an extension of my thinking through drawing while continuing my investigation into my familial research interests and preservation of memory. The subject of family is not one that I root in nostalgia, rather, an ongoing story of memory preservation, participation, and collaboration that highly interests me. What does it mean to be a part of a family line and have no recollection of past relatives, what do we do with all the preserved media (photos, super 8 footage, digital images, and video) and how does it affect the view of one’s past?

Family, place, and history circulate throughout my artistic practice, and often they are left as drafts or lead to larger, more time-based focused works. Nevertheless, these drawings hold their own as finished works and have been exhibited alongside other works of mine, as they give insight into the full array of my research and visual art practice.

The Midnight Drive revolves around a nameless driver, who is displaced in an unknown moment in time, heading to or from their destination. While listening to late night radio for company, a strange interruption occurs, and a mysterious radio show host greets them. This radio DJ acknowledges the driver directly – or rather, the invisible listener – and asks them questions regarding time, existence, and nature while simultaneously alluding to what is happening outside of the car. During this night drive, the weather begins to pick up and change into a snow storm that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. With it, bringing back distant sounds and moments in time that don’t seem to add up...

The Midnight Drive is an audio work that utilizes the podcast format to play with the displacement of time, bringing the past and future into an unknown present. It exists only digitally and is graciously hosted online by Radio Papesse, a web-radio, archive, and platform devoted to contemporary art and the production and promotion of experimental radio and sound. This work was created with the intent to be listened to on the go and wherever one chooses to experience it.

This work is located in the archive of Radio Papesse.

The Midnight Drive has also been featured on an episode of RADIA

American Landscapes is a 3-channel video and sound installation that uses an original soundtrack paired with appropriated footage from Western Genre films to focus on the landscape rather than the main characters. Ranging from the 1950’s to 2018, the films appropriated for this work span the use of painted backgrounds, panoramic shots, on-site footage, or geography from a different country as the backdrops for their stories. These scenes are isolated and re-composed together in their given channels to paint an overall depiction of landscape in these films, bringing the foreground, midground, and background onto three video channels. The characters of these films have been completely removed in order to give way for these backgrounds to be noticed, revealing what was being pushed away in favor of the mythical hero archetype.

The soundtrack of the work is an original composition that utilizes synthesizers, guitars, field recordings, and audio samples both from these films and others as a means to sculpt a soundscape that plays on the typical sound design of Westerns, alluding to this fabricated history. The cultural memory surrounding the American West, is one fueled by the motion picture industry and has shaped how these moments in time are remembered and whose perspective is believed.

One of the underlying themes present in Westerns is the fear of rapid modernization erasing the never-ending landscape, which has been embedded in the history of the United States since its colonial roots. This flawed ideology completely ignores the effects that Western expansion had on indigenous populations in North America as well as how this mythology would shape the cultural mentality and icons in the United States for decades. This work looks to investigate and deconstruct the mythologization of the American West and reveal its hidden histories that have been overlooked in favor of a fabricated one.

I am fascinated with how society deems certain things more valuable than others and

in particular, what to remove and what to keep when developing land. My childhood home in New Jersey’s suburbs, was once sprawling with trees crossing over lawns and covering everything in darkness. However, this is only from what I’ve seen in photographs, since most of these trees have since been uprooted. In the Fall of 2019, my parents had removed a tall pine tree that had stood guardian over my home since I can remember–now it is completely gone.

Upon acting on an intuitive response, I felt the need to document this absence with my camera and search for any evidence of this tree’s existence. I found digital photographs that my father documented upon the tree’s removal, as well as film photographs dating back to when my parents first bought the house. Astounded by this, I looked to find how I could embed these past photographs into ones I recently took from the locations that the originals were shot. Through this action, the trees could be preserved in a timeless zone–one that knows no past, present, or future.

Untitled (Trees) Is an ongoing project that looks to investigate the value in what is considered invaluable within the context of suburban development and its infrastructural failures.

The Golden Hour is a photography term used to describe a period of daylight right after sunrise or before sunset, when the light has a softer and redder quality to it. Deriving from the concept of someone's “Golden Age'' being another's dark age, this work aims to explore what if the golden age is really our demise? Set in an unknown time (presumably the future), space, and setting, a narrative is created by a computerized voice, leading the viewer in an immersive experience. They are told that the sun has been replaced by a new one, an artificial creation by an unknown force and it is designed to replicate the same sensations of Earth’s previous sun. Nevertheless, this is impossible to achieve. Utilizing a projector screen, colors, light, and sound, this work attempts to create a false scenario, where you can only experience a sunrise/sunset from a projection.

Trapped in a loop, a restricted sense of time, light becomes reduced to a repeated image, a memory of a moment. This documented trace of refraction is shown as an instance where a transformation of light was captured in action, now deemed to repeat for eternity. The repeated image preserves this moment but destroys its original version, one that was modified by the time of day, weather, and season it took place in; leaving a ghost of what it once was. How does a moment of light exist within a space while it is simultaneously contained in an infinite loop? Is it still the same light or, is it now something entirely different?

Ephemeral Loop is a video installation that deals with the transient quality of light and the contraction of documenting its presence in order to contain it.

Video Installation, 2021

8.5x5 in.

3’23” Looped

Set in the context of Florence, Italy, my roommates and I would arrive at our dining room table at different times, with different meals, all while enduring a forced period of isolation. This performance captured on video centers around the setting of this dining room table and its connection to community while exploring the feeling of being both together and alone. This table was transformed into an area for conversation, a studio, a place to enjoy a meal, or simply to relax and watch a show. It holds memories of countless conversations with new friends and old ones, yet now, it remained solely for the three of us: Separated from the world during a time of crisis. The table is something more than just a functional object, it is a place for gathering and holding conversations during a meal. It is reminiscent of the family structure often portrayed through time and one that is so integral to the Italian way of life.

Originating from our arrival to eat our meals, The Dinner explores what family structure and community means during a time of isolation.

Featuring Xan Peters, David Neal, and Joe Cimino

Aerial Views is a 2-channel film that explores the effects motorized sounds have on natural environments through investigating the way landscapes are represented and filmed. The film is made entirely from royalty free stock footage, contributed online by multiple users, as a means of expanding a perspective on how we view landscapes. However, each one seems as familiar as the next due to their romanticized rendering of the scenery. This footage is paired with field recordings of overhead planes, engines, and motor vehicles that create a cacophony of brutal mechanical noise that disrupts the serene views. In juxtaposing the romantic view of landscape with the harshness of the noise spilling from the devices that capture it on film, Aerial Views aims to bring awareness to the unnoticed environmental impacts and consequences of machine-made noise.

2-Channel Film, 2021

8’27”

In order to balance objects, one must be emotionally balanced themselves. In order to find the center of gravity for which will balance the object’s, one must intuitively continue and feel it out, as well as hyper focus and concentration. Considered a zen practice, The act of balancing allows you to process your own emotions and ground yourself, all the while creating something that will stand until It is acted upon.

For me, this is a ritual of self care.

Prosthesis and the Art of Self Expression is a project dealing with the creation of fragile and dysfunctional prosthetics with the purpose of replacing what is no longer there. These objects are created from recycled and poor materials that one has easy access to. However, they will constantly be in a state of repair. Enforcing the idea of the act of reconstruction and its connection to recovery. This project questions the idea of society's gaze and the necessity we have for balance in people's appearance. Is the object for the person? or is it for those who have to look at them? Is it right to have someone fix themselves in order to fit in? In response, an uncanny replacement is created which emphasizes the new fusion of cardboard to flesh. Creating an expressive addition to extend one's body.