Art and architecture as forms of escapism from the physical and psychological prisons of existence. These are the tracks on which the new fascinating video for “Mi Fiderò”, a song by Marco Mengoni (winner of the Italian edition of X Factor in 2009 and of the Sanremo Festival in 2013) featuring Madame, moves.
The video, directed by Roberto Ortu, is above all a tribute to the work of Franz Erhard Walther, a recent guest of the Supersalone in Milan and the German artist who made spatial and participatory performances his acclaimed trait, so much so as to earn him a Golden Lion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. In the video we especially have a reference to his Sehkanal from the series 1. Werksatz (1963-69): a performance in which two subjects move in within a space united and mutually balanced by a fabric surface that covers their faces establishing a new visual channel between the two. If Walther’s aim was to create objects free of any meaning, it can be said that with this video Mengoni similarly wanted to seek the affirmation of a new expressiveness.
This also passes through the tribute to Ettore Sottsass and a quite explicite homage to his Door to enter the shadow. His modular and “Chinese boxes” approach to setting up environments – an example of which is the Casa Lana recently brought back to life at the Triennale in Milan – becomes the inspiration for the “sound boxes” that make up the track. One of these is defined by the precious contribution of Madame, a young promise of Italian music, who established herself to the general public after participating in the last edition of the Sanremo Festival.
In the video, the actor Vincenzo Crea moves among the architectures of the Nuovo Corviale district of Rome, an urban, brutalist and suffocating scenario, from which he escapes, arriving at a desert landscape, almost lunar, which also recalls the theaters of land art works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Paraphrasing Sottsass, Mengoni and Ortu say that “Inventing a space means creating substance [...] The entire video is based on design as an act of trust and momentum, whose mother scene becomes the actor's hands on work materials”.
After all, Materia (Terra) – meaning Matter (Earth) – is the name of the album featuring the song. An ambitious project that is set to develop over three full-length records, the first of which was released in December.
These architectural forms and structures thus serve to imagine and define a new reality, both for the artist and for the listener, for whom the piece is intended to be a stimulus to escape from the constraints of everyday life.
Opening image: The influence of the work of Walther and Sottsass can be traced in the video directed by Roberto Ortu for “Mi Fiderò” by Marco Mengoni and Madame. Photo frame from the video