https://annachiaretta.com ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI Fri, 17 Feb 2023 03:07:44 +0000 https://annachiaretta.com en https://annachiaretta.com/Front-page Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:29 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/Front-page It’s ok,we’re all just making it up. https://annachiaretta.com/About Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:29 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/About About Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli is an artist-filmmaker who uses moving images and writing to play with perception, authority, and agency. Through isolated gestures on screen, she undermines power structures implicit in the performance of femininity and image production itself. In her installations and video work, Lavatelli engages the gaze, repetition, and the absurd to unravel the connections between seeing and knowing. Currently she is working with material from personal histories that are intertwined with the making of our end times. Lavatelli holds a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the University of California San Diego, and a Bachelor's degree in Media Study from the University at Buffalo. She teaches video production at the University at Buffalo, produces short documentaries and consults on digital media for museums, artists, and exhibitions. A collaborator by nature, she is a self-identified anarchist, and has a loud laugh. Artist Statement I am an artist-filmmaker using moving images and writing to play with perception, power, and performativity. The foundation of my visual research is in the codified pictures of the feminine ideal as expressed on screen in popular culture. I undermine the psychological dynamics of control in established modes of viewing by deploying the gaze, repetition, and the absurd. My installations and video works are realized in an array of forms: a field of eyes looking out from the structure of their projected surface (Untitled (Eyes)), a body slowly navigating a pink room echoing scenes of teenage boredom&nbsp; or actions slipping back and forth through time until interrupted by the subjects’ moment of eye contact (The Pink Room). Isolated gestures on screen are contained within constructed scenes designed around the frame. The image is destabilized through tensions built between movement and stillness, as well as representation and abstraction. These scenarios underscore the power structures implicit in the performance of femininity and image production itself. These pieces are also experiments in untethering time, a patriarchal capitalist conceit that we all live by and that video and film naturally reimagine. I complicate the transcendent untethering of the self through identification or consumption of moving images with the grounding of the viewer’s consciousness in the bodily and present reality. The work unravels the connections between seeing and knowing. This conversation expands beyond bodies trapped in a frame to the trap of our collective imagined dystopia. My current project builds on material from personal histories intertwined with the making of our end times. Our capacity for imagination and time itself are pondered through the events that shaped my two grandfathers’ careers, the products of which formulated our capacity to monitor and destroy life. At present, I am digitally processing films captured by my grandfather in the 1950s on the Distant Early Warning Line (DEWLine), transforming them into minimalist compositions that transcend the representational, becoming a field of marks, a mere echo of repeated edges. A decade prior my paternal grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project as a young physicist, a project of science that founded the ultimate capacity for designing our end. These personal and male-dominated histories provide an avenue for diving into the borders of our confidence in warnings, preparedness, and perceived control over our destiny in spite of the unknown future—one which I examine with a decidedly feminist touch. https://annachiaretta.com/Distant-Early-Warning Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:30 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/Distant-Early-Warning Distant Early Warning <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/af4020d54a1738ed580d9cb1bb3f6b001afcc81b88635e4dc1508ec20a5b3e00/DEW-02-lavatelli.jpg" data-mid="219956325" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/af4020d54a1738ed580d9cb1bb3f6b001afcc81b88635e4dc1508ec20a5b3e00/DEW-02-lavatelli.jpg" /> An experimental short film that processes archival 8mm footage through digital algorithms to create eerie abstractions. The source footage was captured in 1956 during the construction of an extension of the Distant Early Warning Line (DEWLine), that juxtaposes pristine snowy landscapes with snapshots of life on a defensive military installation: vehicles, equipment, and the quotidian of the tundra of the remote Arctic Circle—men fishing, working, and indigenous children playing in the snow. These scenes are overlaid with an implicit tension—the looming threat of nuclear attack, which the DEWLine radar station is designed to detect. The 8mm footage is transformed into flattened digital landscapes of pixels while retaining traces of recognizable references, they become utterly otherworldly. The visuals shift between human perspectives and the inscrutable point of view of technology, presenting an apocalyptic vision as though the worst has already happened. The abstracted, melting, flickering textures evoke radioactive poisoning and atomic destruction. Human figures emerge and vanish, consumed by forces far beyond human control. <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5e4c4363f2b8f46c5d535de4d3d9f20b216ba035e916d127b4ff82cdb770eccb/Distant-Warning-v03.00_11_08_19.Still004.jpg" data-mid="168739356" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5e4c4363f2b8f46c5d535de4d3d9f20b216ba035e916d127b4ff82cdb770eccb/Distant-Warning-v03.00_11_08_19.Still004.jpg" /> Screenings Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic (2025, European Premiere)Onion City Film Festival, Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago, IL (2025, Chicago Premiere) Buffalo International Film Festival (2024, World Premiere) <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e3658a011cf982664b5bb4517ea6f64c8909eed337c5356c7279c697776a157c/Distant-Warning-v03.00_16_02_13.Still003.jpg" data-mid="168739357" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e3658a011cf982664b5bb4517ea6f64c8909eed337c5356c7279c697776a157c/Distant-Warning-v03.00_16_02_13.Still003.jpg" /> https://annachiaretta.com/Atomic-Distance Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:30 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/Atomic-Distance Atomic Distance Atomic Distance is the working title for an in-progress project born out of material from family archives and surrounding historical and personal events. This is an expansion of my parallel project,&nbsp;Distant Early Warning. Trinity, the atomic explosion in New Mexico, introduced an incomprehensible life destroying capacity to our world. Ten years later construction of the Distant Early Warning System ​(DEWLine) in the arctic in collaboration began. A system of antennae to monitor the skies for incoming missiles and give us several hours to prepare for the end. Each of these projects set in desolate terrain with a direct confrontation of our end times included the participation of one of my late grandfathers. <img width="6720" height="4480" width_o="6720" height_o="4480" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7a9b4b1ca138b9c19788edfe3a34dc4f607bcff4abaad2ddd634f9284a1b451b/2022_03_06_trinitite-05_1.JPG" data-mid="168739129" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7a9b4b1ca138b9c19788edfe3a34dc4f607bcff4abaad2ddd634f9284a1b451b/2022_03_06_trinitite-05_1.JPG" /> Trinitite from Leo Lavatelli’s Archive&nbsp; https://annachiaretta.com/Untitled-Eyes Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:31 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/Untitled-Eyes Untitled (Eyes) The body is flattened into a rectilinear flesh projection.My eyes are multiplied into a field, no longer portals.They are tools of a surveilling entrapment for the onlooker. Eyes blink and peer, unmoved.A flesh potato. A surreal watcher with an a static endless gaze. <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0ab8d4e9479c851d2d2d636d7df58aaa8bea183d2dba363478917ff4a33730a5/TheEyes_Lavatelli.jpg" data-mid="168714975" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0ab8d4e9479c851d2d2d636d7df58aaa8bea183d2dba363478917ff4a33730a5/TheEyes_Lavatelli.jpg" /> <img width="3834" height="2152" width_o="3834" height_o="2152" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9e87b0a3116344200d9dd554dc45170a6b4fd336b026594b1f5f2756a49e9530/Screen-Shot-2023-02-17-at-0.09.48.png" data-mid="168739382" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9e87b0a3116344200d9dd554dc45170a6b4fd336b026594b1f5f2756a49e9530/Screen-Shot-2023-02-17-at-0.09.48.png" /> Unititled (Eyes House) Untitled (Eyes) is constantly reiterating to adapt for site-specific projection performances. The work seeks venues to perform its multiplied (perceived) surveillance from surfaces, corners, and when context begs it, screens. Below they are duplicated and mirrored for a seemless double 4k projection. <img width="3840" height="1080" width_o="3840" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/374c203445c7ec8a5ddfcfab2c9b43ca156e044597a84ac58d0e0252ecd5edbe/Harawi-ProjectionStill-Final-Eyes.jpg" data-mid="168715005" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/374c203445c7ec8a5ddfcfab2c9b43ca156e044597a84ac58d0e0252ecd5edbe/Harawi-ProjectionStill-Final-Eyes.jpg" /> https://annachiaretta.com/Pink-Rooms Fri, 17 Feb 2023 03:07:44 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/Pink-Rooms Pink Rooms<img width="4752" height="3168" width_o="4752" height_o="3168" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2ca252f3bfe3294b6f631c511b58f9ba1f109374b5afee31d40b982e37f24e67/_MG_8350.jpg" data-mid="168739538" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2ca252f3bfe3294b6f631c511b58f9ba1f109374b5afee31d40b982e37f24e67/_MG_8350.jpg" /> An outdoor installation based on the original Pink Room installation, this installation explodes the singular room out into three stages, and invites the viewer to experience the pinkness,but also to be viewed in it. One fully walled room was filled with pink trash mixed with yard waste, one served as a stage with an open cieling to frame the sky with pink, and the last an enclosed space blasting Britney Spears tracks slowed and layered with sound effects. <img width="4752" height="3168" width_o="4752" height_o="3168" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f6a156891c020917e75da69f5394e57914504e5c5820e7cd41e30b7281219766/_MG_8360.jpg" data-mid="168739539" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f6a156891c020917e75da69f5394e57914504e5c5820e7cd41e30b7281219766/_MG_8360.jpg" /> <img width="4752" height="3168" width_o="4752" height_o="3168" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7a8a28ed531327b789fb323fd110126c5b68f682cbfbee720bb0743d2c011e6d/_MG_8298-copy.jpg" data-mid="168739582" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7a8a28ed531327b789fb323fd110126c5b68f682cbfbee720bb0743d2c011e6d/_MG_8298-copy.jpg" /> https://annachiaretta.com/The-Wreck Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:31 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/The-Wreck THE WRECKProduced in collaboration with students from Angel’s Gate High School <img width="2000" height="1333" width_o="2000" height_o="1333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5c8aeccfe566a5114128ef493858c3aec89fa6e072bea14940d198c3c8bf64fc/TheWreck_MG_9187.jpeg" data-mid="168614958" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5c8aeccfe566a5114128ef493858c3aec89fa6e072bea14940d198c3c8bf64fc/TheWreck_MG_9187.jpeg" /> This site-specific fictional narrative incorporates the immediate space around the Angels Gate Cultural Center gallery and Angel’s Gate High School, a space of innocent explorations with a proximity to nature and Hollywood car wrecks, located in the crosshairs of the wild energy of youth. The image of a teenager behind the wheel is not one of just growing up and independence, but also one of impending disaster. The car wreck is a tragic American narrative starring the teenager, and an allegory for the teenage experience. This project was created in collaboration with a group of teens from Angel’s Gate High School that resulted in a site-specific installation of photography, letters, video projection, sound, and salvaged car parts at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center. The entire project was staged in a space between fantasy and the real and ripe with drama and ambiguity. It captures the way these students conjured memories, or fragments of narratives plucked from their environment through playful image creation, and imagined scenes of horror. https://annachiaretta.com/The-Pink-Room Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:32 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/The-Pink-Room The Pink Room <img width="3000" height="2000" width_o="3000" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/56655a55350c9043c0f5433c15bd2d511d4dc31cb128fcfd054548967b3ac3c9/Mess1.jpeg" data-mid="168612167" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/56655a55350c9043c0f5433c15bd2d511d4dc31cb128fcfd054548967b3ac3c9/Mess1.jpeg" /> The centerpiece of the Pink Room is a two-channel color video projection accompanied by a soundtrack of static and highly processed, slowed-down pop music that underscores a desperate darkness of adolescence performed by two girls. In the anesthetic room, they sink into a pink void through an improvised floor dance and actions on mass-produced pink objects. The pleasure of power, and the power of pleasure, but what if there is no pleasure? The girls are fixed by a gaze they perceive to be fixed upon them; this is their supposed pleasure. <img width="1922" height="1080" width_o="1922" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/31cc19923648447b11192d90127f9e6b4c040cc2effe2470a17ce601824a3810/THESIScatalogMatteFINAL-51.jpeg" data-mid="168612160" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/31cc19923648447b11192d90127f9e6b4c040cc2effe2470a17ce601824a3810/THESIScatalogMatteFINAL-51.jpeg" /> <img width="1923" height="1080" width_o="1923" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8d7d44fdf845f8d9e246ebb7c0e7202715c33e8139c7fd04176e3748728fe4cc/THESIScatalogMatteFINAL-52.jpeg" data-mid="168612163" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8d7d44fdf845f8d9e246ebb7c0e7202715c33e8139c7fd04176e3748728fe4cc/THESIScatalogMatteFINAL-52.jpeg" /> The visual culture that surrounds teenage girls poses the location of pleasure as being that which is consumed by the gaze. To be looked at, particularly to look good enough to be looked at, is pleasure. The process was a space of play and stillness, seeking out pleasure in simply being but also assured by the collaborative and safe environment we established. However, once projected the scene is subject to voyeurism, the gaze needed to be reclaimed. So, the exhibition was monitored by a teen girl who stared down anyone who entered the gallery. She assured that the space remained in their control with the steely gaze of a popular girl at the head of the lunch table commanding all in her path. The fantasy of femininity is perpetuated by our culture's development of codes for performing the feminine, visualized daily through mass produced objects in a mass produced color palette… Pink.&nbsp; This highly designed cultural unreality places girls in a state of impossible expectation removed of their own pleasure, as stated by Britney Spears at the age of sixteen: “ I don't need nobody telling me just what I wanna/ What I what what what I'm gonna/ Do about my destiny/ I Say No, No/ Nobody's telling me just what I wanna do, do/ I'm so fed up with people telling me to be/ Someone else but ME.” <img width="1923" height="1080" width_o="1923" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dfd1dd96b4ef93dbbce0949c3b2e7f2635a63c271e05ce4134a72bd086dc5429/THESIScatalogMatteFINAL-50.jpeg" data-mid="168612161" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/dfd1dd96b4ef93dbbce0949c3b2e7f2635a63c271e05ce4134a72bd086dc5429/THESIScatalogMatteFINAL-50.jpeg" /> Excerpts from The Pink Room The Pink Room: three between This project was made possible by the Russell Foundation Grant, and support from UC San Diego Visual Arts. https://annachiaretta.com/Her-Nature Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:52:32 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/Her-Nature Her Nature <img width="1280" height="720" width_o="1280" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ce00bc1dce9075cf11b2ea6ac62637bd7e78807131a91c2b36784f18af53eb04/HandsEarth.jpg" data-mid="168739608" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ce00bc1dce9075cf11b2ea6ac62637bd7e78807131a91c2b36784f18af53eb04/HandsEarth.jpg" /> Her Nature is an installation composed of work captured in the woods of Maine one summer working with two young women who were preparing to go away to college. With them I discussed identity and representation of femininity in our culture; particularly that of their high school experience where they began their process of growing out of girlhood.&nbsp; Through these conversations a series of video and photographic portraits were born that open up their representations of self and the controlled gestures I imposed upon them. <img width="1280" height="720" width_o="1280" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5063c94365ac90866a2b2d7a6932dd15ae6191a7b6d89d4d36167458a77505c6/tumble.jpg" data-mid="168739615" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5063c94365ac90866a2b2d7a6932dd15ae6191a7b6d89d4d36167458a77505c6/tumble.jpg" /> The portraits started as a highly posed and self-conscious presence, that expanded into self-directed performances where they exist for the camera on their own terms. This is not just their stern gaze out of a performed character, but those moments with which they break through the surface with their own playful gestures or a simple touch.<img width="4000" height="2800" width_o="4000" height_o="2800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cc927b40fdcdd98600942a297b3ad9c3f26f53f85fb9a58d791e962a8caa9b05/Lavatelli1_14x20_lustre.jpg" data-mid="168968242" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cc927b40fdcdd98600942a297b3ad9c3f26f53f85fb9a58d791e962a8caa9b05/Lavatelli1_14x20_lustre.jpg" /> The scenes were installed on a stage constructed in a studio on the edge of the forest that used a window in the space as an additional live-channel to the video channels dedicated to the pose and play. <img width="2560" height="1600" width_o="2560" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7a499318b876b469d9488cb3863868c0742df97c2583178017ce6e417e159ab5/_MG_5765-copy.jpg" data-mid="168968066" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7a499318b876b469d9488cb3863868c0742df97c2583178017ce6e417e159ab5/_MG_5765-copy.jpg" /> Excerpt from Her Nature (Tumble): https://annachiaretta.com/As-it-Lays Fri, 17 Feb 2023 00:55:49 +0000 ANNA CHIARETTA LAVATELLI https://annachiaretta.com/As-it-Lays As it Lays <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c4459a0b62c58aa177253092495072e9752fe36b07d7e56c0cfd39ff0b0442b2/PlayingIt2.jpg" data-mid="168739671" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c4459a0b62c58aa177253092495072e9752fe36b07d7e56c0cfd39ff0b0442b2/PlayingIt2.jpg" /> A three-channel video installation that suspends the teen amateur actress in the very unreality of the studio stage. In a central channel a group of girls take turns in a series of screen tests wherein they perform sections of dialogue from Joan Didion’s Novel, Play it As it Lays. In the installation before witnessing the awkward tension between characters, performers, and their own identities the viewer passes through two projected single-take scenes. Each scene is a multiplied reference to the infamous deaths from Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo. The scenes are constructed through slow reveals of a field of stagnant too-young actresses performing iconic death poses—disarming the viewer with their subtle breath.&nbsp; <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/017ffa0d102afdfbeab83ff4b10b9e00f887affc41874f8d176864af8f593fb0/vertigo.jpg" data-mid="168739750" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/017ffa0d102afdfbeab83ff4b10b9e00f887affc41874f8d176864af8f593fb0/vertigo.jpg" /> Their physical presence confuses the performamce of an adult femininity and points at their own not yet being women. The construction of their identity is in process and affected by the intake of specifically codified images of ideality in popular culture. And like young women performing said ideal, they are splayed for the camera like pinned butterflies, but here the performance of the role in awkward conflict with the realness of themselves.