Belligerent Eyes

“Belligerent Eyes | 5K Confinement” is an upcoming, pioneering project on contemporary image production. Conceived and designed by Luigi Alberto Cippini and developed in collaboration with film director Giovanni Fantoni Modena, “Belligerent Eyes” sets itself as an experimental media research facility geared in the spaces of Fondazione Prada’s Venetian venue, Ca’ Corner della Regina.

With “Belligerent Eyes” Fondazione Prada, restlessly searching for new grounds of confrontation on cinema and visual languages, experiments with new forms of collaboration, analysis and research. “Belligerent Eyes” was born out the Fondazione’s will to create a reciprocally stimulating exchange with younger generations working in the realms of cinema and visual arts research and production, enabling them to work in complete autonomy and freedom. This new relationship has marked independence as the core of such an artistic collaboration, offering the Fondazione the opportunity to re-invent the expressions of its cultural commitment.

At a time when cinema has lost its capacity to assert itself as the beholder of collective imaginary, “Belligerent Eyes” aims at introducing new didactic perspectives in both filmmaking and film studies. From 26 May to 11 September 2016, an international network of academics and practitioners, together with fifteen selected participants, will be entrusted as a core group with the development and sharing of various academic initiatives revolving around the future of motion pictures.
The intended disciplinary spectrum will investigate the most diverse aspects in contemporary image production: by challenging the traditional norms related to education and scrutinizing the current socio-cultural transformations endured by the field, Ca’ Corner della Regina will foster a borderline association where both professors and students, as part of a sole academic body, will set themselves against new practices and innovations.

The program is composed of six cross-curricular phases and a fortnightly corollary module. Each interdisciplinary session is anticipated by a preparatory week and will last seven days: various practitioners (including John Palmesino, Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, Trevor Paglen, Mauricio Gris, Vittorio Gallese and Stacy Martin), also in regard to their own standard practice, will asymmetrically go a long way towards the experimentation.
Since knowledge production is nowadays generally perceived as the main derivate of what museums and visual art institutions can engender, “Belligerent Eyes” aims at not dismissing research and its cultural inquiries as a sole commodity for a nominal exhibition.
In order to reduce and govern the visibility of what will be produced within its premises and to guarantee the necessary privacy for analysis and exploration, Ca’ Corner della Regina will be open only on designed occasions and upon reservation.

In conjunction with the Venice Film Festival, “Belligerent Eyes” will lastly promote a broadcasting experiment. This will set itself beyond the traditional Western standards, and it will condense the idea of merging into a singular production structures and disciplines traditionally foreign to the realm of cinema.