Paolo Rosa 1949-2013

Paolo Rosa, a founding member of Studio Azzurro, passed away on the night of 19/20 August. He will be remembered in a ceremony today in Milan, his adoptive city, from 5pm to midnight at the Fabbrica del Vapore.

Everything seems at rest: a blue tinted atmosphere and an embracing sound track welcome the spectator. The monitors, placed side by side, are crossed by the repetitive and belaboured swim strokes of the swimmer as he moves tirelessly from one screen to another. The installation (synchronised using twenty four monitors and thirteen video programmes) was created using twelve video cameras lined along the edge of a swimming pool, flush with the surface of the water. We see a swimmer who, with repeated, laboured strokes, “moves across” each adjacent television screens. A hundred microevents (a falling ball, an anchor sinking down..) are inserted into the main scene, and remain relegated in the individual screens. It is through this alternation of events that the first live spectator participation in the installation is achieved, a trait that will later become a feature of Studio Azzurro’s work. The spectator is not required to follow a narrative thread. The spectator becomes a part of the event that unfolds in that particular instant and will never be the same again.

Main picture: Studio Azzurro’s Anelli di luce video-installation, part of an architectural project by Achille Castiglioni for the BTicino Pavilion at Intel ‘85 in Milan (Domus 666, November 1985).

Paolo Rosa 1949-2013

Paolo Rosa, a founding member of Studio Azzurro, passed away on the night of 19/20 August. He will be remembered in a ceremony today in Milan, his adoptive city, from 5pm to midnight at the Fabbrica del Vapore.

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