'Light_Earth_Blue_Silver' a dual film by Roberto Opalio / soundtrack by My Cat Is An Alien
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Light_Earth_Blue_Silver | dual film by Roberto Opalio, soundtrack by MCIAA. 2008 / 37 minutes / 4:3 / color / stereo
The film was shot in 8mm cassette in January 2005 in a remote location of Italy's western Alps. A first version, with different editing, was screened in April 2005 at The Sage Gateshead, Newcastle (UK) during a My Cat Is An Alien's live performance. The final editing was made in 2008, adding an original soundtrack by My Cat Is An Alien. This version has been published in a CD/DVD set in 2009 by American label Atavistic and presented at Netwerk Center for Contemporary Art in Aalst (Belgium) in March 2009, at Octubre CCC (Centre de Cultura Contemporània) in Valencia (Spain) in April 2009, at Netmage.10 International Live-Media Festival at Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna (Italy) in January 2010, and at other international art spaces and multimedia festivals.
For the film
Roberto Opalio made a two-meter-tall alien figure in iron wire, one of
the main features inhabiting his own artistic imaginary, and symbol of
the transfiguration of the existential vision of the last human being
on Earth. The Alien is the character of Light_Earth_Blue_Silver.
This film shows the Alien's physical and existential voyage along a mountain
track, where snow, rocks, white birches and pinetrees mark out its way
to heaven. As all Opalio's works, the film has multiple levels of interpretation.
"[..] Light_Earth_Blue_Silver, a 35 minute 'dual film' shot in 8mm by Roberto using a handheld cine camera in the Western Alps, communicates this sense of immediacy with great concentration and power. Its sole protagonist is a large wire model of the Alien icon Roberto has been featuring in paitings and drawings over many years. A stick figure with widely extended arms and legs, its head is a single sharply elliptical eye, permanently open and staring out at the universe that surrounds it. In a series of raw ritual gestures, the Alien is dragged and pushed through a rough winter landscape: shown across two screens, the twitching of the wire limbs makes it appear as if the Alien were writhing and crawling over the snow-covered rocks and brown, bare earth. To MCIAA's intense soundtrack, the Alien becomes entangled with branches, twigs and lichen until at the movie's climax, he is seen moving upright against a blue Alpine sky.[..]" - Ken Hollings (from 'A Homemade Universe', The Wire #331 cover article, September 2011)
The film is available through ATAVISTIC WORLDWIDE in the CD/DVD set 'Through the Magnifying Glass of Tomorrow'