LIFE CHRONICLES OF DOROTHEA ÏESJ S.P.U. (2024) IS A FILM & AUDIO NOVEL IN THREE EPISODES, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALMARE. THE PROJECT IS CURATED BY RADIO PAPESSE (IT) AND PROMOTED BY TIMESPAN (UK).
SET IN A FICTIONAL SOCIETY, LIFE CHRONICLES OF DOROTHEA ÏESJ S.P.U. FOLLOWS THE ADVENTURES OF RESEARCHER DOROTHEA ÏESJ AS SHE EXTRACTS SOUNDS FROM THE PAST.
Life Chronicles of Dorothea ïesj S.P.U. has been created thanks to the support of the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture through the Italian Council (2022), programme for the international promotion of contemporary Italian art, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT, Fondazione CR Firenze, Torino Film Commission.
At the frontier of radio, film, and literature formats, the work is inspired by pseudo-scientific theories developed in the 19th century, at the same time as the growing development of recording technologies. These included archaeoacoustics, which suggested the possibility of tracing acoustic phenomena of the past that remained engraved in matter.
Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U. investigates the link between data capitalism, technology, and value creation, reflecting on the use of archaeological artefacts, archives, and memory as instruments of power and control.
The work will be acquired by MUSEION | Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano; it comes with its audio-catalogue What Do Sounds Want?, a podcast produced by Radio Papesse and ALMARE distributed by NERO Editions.
Preview of Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U. has been presented at Errant Sound, Berlin; Sound Studies Lab, Copenhagen; Loop Fair, Barcelona; The film has been screened at MUSEION | Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano, at Cinema Massimo, Turin (in collaboration with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo), at IUAV University, Venice with a lecture with ALMARE and Radio Papesse, at Becoming Futures, a mini-festival at Timespan, an art and cultural organisation in Helmsdale, Scottish Highlands (UK). The film and audio-novel has been screened from April 29th to May 5th at Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome. On May the 15, Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U. has been presented at Careof in Milan at Fabbrica del Vapore.
The production of Life Chronicles of Dorothea ïesj S.P.U. was accompanied by a series of digital editorial content created by Dario Bassani in collaboration with graphic designer Giordano Cruciani to overflow Dorothea's world outside the space of the work, creating a space for storytelling and insights into the characters and themes that inhabit Dorothea's universe, in an ongoing back-and-forth between reality and fiction, starting with the sabotage of stories and works that make up the imaginative infrastructure of our project.
