Imaginary Futures: Tourism
Festival 25 FPS
program Reflections 1
The film deals with the Mediterranian environment and non-built futuristic tourist complex from 1970 in the age of the Anthropocene.
Three artists' summer colonies that took place at the Korčula island in Croatia in 1968, 1970 and 1972, regularly questioned different means of creative expression. 1968 art colony explored the topic of the mosaic; the 1970 edition focused on the design of the tourist settlement and in 1972 it dealt with the participation of the local population and artistic use of mass media.
The film focuses on the tourist settlement designed by Ricardo Porro, a Cuban architect in exile in Paris. Porro made a master plan of the tourist resort in the shape of a human body. Later, this plan was elaborated by thirty international artists and architects.
The film considers the question of the vision of the future examined in the example of imagined tourist settlement and ideas cultivated there. Utopia was embodied in the design of the tourist settlement, which was to synthesize architecture, sculpture, painting, and tourism. The main visuals in the film are the Mediterranean landscape and the 3D reenactment of the tourist settlement. The 3D images included several artworks designed for the 1970 project., including land art intervention by Ugo la Pietra where he proposed cutting the top of the nearby island and sculpture of the heart by Alina Szapocznikow. The strain between analogue and digital technologies in an audiovisual composition is propelled by visuals treated by an oscilloscope (and related sounds the treatment produces, this is optional).
The audio archive made of 1970 symposia where architects and urbanists discussed the project and the context of building in Mediterranean environment, including Porro's authentic voice is intertwined with visuals.
2023, 19', DCP
FILM BY Darko Fritz
PRODUCTION Kreativni sindikat
COPRODUCTION grey) (area
CAMERA Boris Poljak
EDITING Hrvoslava Brkušić
OSCILLOSCOPE TREATMENTS Ivan Marušić Klif
SOUNDTRACK AND SOUND DESIGN Francisco López
VOICE Ricardo Porro
ARCHITECTURAL MODEL OF TORURIST RESOURCE PLITVINE IS RECONSTRUCTED UPON DRAWINGS BY RICARDO PORRO AND COLLABORARORS, INCLUDING ARTWORKS BY ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW, UGO LA PIETRA AND
ARCHITECTURAL MODEL Tomislav Tabain
3D ANIMATION Dimitri Medvedev
About author
Since the late 1980s, the work of artist, curator and researcher Darko Fritz has revolved around a significant investigation into the use of technology in culture. He presented his artwork at 20 solo and more than a hundred group exhibitions around the world, and he also worked in the artistic groups the Imitation of Life Studio (with Željko Serdarević, 1987 - 1990) and Katerdala (1988).
His curatorial work and research on New Tendencies and early digital art has earned international acclaim with exhibitions at HDLU, Zagreb (2000), Neue Galerie, Graz (2007), ZKM, Karlsruhe (2008-09) and Akbank, Istanbul (2014).
He is the author of the book "Digital Art in Croatia (1968 - 1984)", Tehnički Muzej, Zagreb, 2021.
Fritz edited Media Art in Croatia at the portal Culturenet. The research "The beginning of digital arts in the Netherlands (1955 - 1980)", was awarded by the grant by Mondriaan Foundation. Fritz is founder and programmer of the grey) (area – space for contemporary and media art since 2006.
He is faculty member at the Media Art Histories at the Danube University.
Member of professional organizations HDLU (visual arts), ULUPUH (design), and AICA (art criticism).
