“An ordinary day in my life, by Macalda.”

Storyboard synopsis:

A conceptual storytelling based on a local legend which is lost in time, using photography and slow motion animation, narratives and digital interaction.

The legend of Macalda of Scaletta presents the ordinary life of a living ghost in a contemporary reality moving freely around the village. After having different conversations and interviews with local people from Scaletta Superiore and Inferiore, we collected memories and impressions to inspire our project and recreate the legend as a contemporary one (future of storytelling).

The interactive storytelling allows the user to visit different locations and navigate on a map of Scaletta which connects the old and new village. In every spot, there is a picture or a short animation appearing together with a sound file (narrator voice or sound). All participants in this project (making off, the whole process, interaction): Irene, Martina, Jakub, Nino, Giulio, Rosaria.

I don´t have a video version that can be used online. If Nino or Giulio can create a video with some linear narrative containing the audios, it can be used to present this project on the internet (Youtube).

“ScaZanleclettaa”

A visual photo documentation of Scaletta Zanclea during the residency period. The memories collected are directly connected with the sensorial perception of the environment and mixed with own impressions. While editing the images, a text came out as a narrative for the visuals collected. (Find it below and as an attached doc to this email).

It´s 17:10 to my left and 14:50 to my right. Where am I?
One turn, two, three and four, what´s the time?
Life moves backward and forwards in this strange paradise.
I contemplate the landscape while listening
to the perfect disharmony of a timeless symphony
performed by an invisible orchestra,
which instruments are made
of electric wires and ferocious plants.

I smell the precious nectar of blossoming flowers
trapping through the leftovers of an empty house.
In the nonsense, the village maintains it´s own rhythm,
solitude caress the pale with gradients of a green palette.

Nature takes all over the place invading massively as
an army of Mother Earth.
While something perishes, something else is born.
While the elderly count their days left,
wilderness raises embracing it all.

Like two sides of a coin or a spiral staircase,
this village goes up and down with a beautiful nonsense.
I leave behind the fragments that I found today
from an undated yesterday.
Feeling like an archaeologist of tomorrow,
smiling and wondering about all these artifacts and waste.

According to no law that science can tell,
there is something peculiar in the streets and their smell.
Some smell of flowers while others like death,
some doors remain close when others are not found.

The people of this village are peculiar as well.
They are scalettians, they function as the stairs.
Life goes always up and down, down and up, who cares.
While the dead ones meet up, modern life flows down the stairs.

Nature likes to play here too with disasters and big flows.
They take away what men have built and leave a mess around.
When nature wants to manifest it is an horror show.
The forces of a thousand sons of Titan Poseidon
play triumphant trumpets on their march towards the Sea and Beyond.

Memory seems to be forgotten in this tiny town.
When one ask about their ghosts, nobody seems to know
if they were once alive or dead or even if they existed.
There is a castle on the top where all these invisible ones
hang together and remain as local villagers.
If you ask me where am I, I no longer know
how to answer to this question without feeling lost.
I love the fact that this place is a mixture of all times.

Somehow, it feels like the wind,
sometimes dances soft and smooth
and others like a storm.

Sca Zan Le Cle Tta A,

no matter what the order is,
Scaletta Zanclea and Zanclea Scaletta
are both one.

You can see many pictures taken by Irene all over the documentation of Trasformatorio 2017. She has a deep sensibility that she showed in a series of portraits of nature as well as the people she met.
Half of the secret dramaturgy of the operation rested on her strong shoulders and I would not have made it without her. This is not an evaluation talk, is a thank you.
f

more: check out Irene’s story on her blog http://namtarucreations.com/portfolio/tras-form-trasformatorio-air/