EMANUELE DAINOTTI
Emanuele Dainotti (b. 1987 in Milano, Italy. Lives and works in Antwerpen, Belgium) is an artist and filmmaker. His videos and video installations have been shown and awarded in expositions and festivals such as Museum of the Moving Image (USA); Louvre Museum (France); FIVAC (Cuba); Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); CGAI (Spain); XIV Mostra internazionale del video d’autore Avvistamenti (Italy); VAFT (Finland); Rencontres Internationales Paris (France); Festival Miden (Greece); Fonlad (Portugal); Hudson Valley MOCA (USA). In 2018 he won the “International Competition for the Intermedia Artwork” organized by the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, The Faculty of Intermedia and the Foundation for Development of Intermedia Artwork. In 2019 a jury presided by Anish Kapoor and Anda Rottenberg awarded him with the “Now You See Me award” at Louvre Museum in Paris.
Artist’ statement
My research focuses on impossibility, imperceptibility and inconceivability. I challenge myself in creating impossible but at the same time plausible visual and narrative structures, thanks to the malleability and the transdisciplinary nature of the video medium. I investigate “fear” and “death” as generating forces, focusing on the relationships that unfold when they meet with different agents, both human and non-human. “Loop”, “time” and “finitude” are central themes in my work. My practice is research-based. Atmospheres and people who make up the places where I live are at the base of all my projects. Walking through cities’ streets, entering bars, frequenting squares and local stores are the activities that kick off my research. I mainly work at night. The intrinsic characteristics the night possesses have a great influence on my work, both from an aesthetic and thematic point of view. Darkness, temporal dilatation, impalpability, opacity, ambiguity, complexity as well as lonely and marginal figures, street lamps, suburbs and fog have become part of my method and consequently my artworks. The roots of my work are to be found in literature, anthropology, cinema and philosophy.
