Traces Action part 1 - Studio Morra, Naples Italy, May 19, 1999


The action begins with a prepared canvas being covered with acrylic painting medium. A bucket of bee's wax is melted down and kept liquid throughout the action. A bucket of black tempra paint is placed at the head of the prepared canvas along with a bucket of powder ground down from a native stone of Naples called toufo. The stone is very pourous, realativly soft and blankets the subteranean levels of Naples. I ground down a block of this stone to make the powder for the action.

Once every thing is in place, the lights are turned off and my colaborator Moxedano enters the gallery with me and lights two candels at the head of the canvas. I assume a position face down on the prepared canvas with arms and legs in a "V" shape position. Moxedano begins to cover my body in the powder of the toufo stone with the use of a sifter. Gradually the body and canvas become covered in powder. When all the powder is gone, Moxedano extinguishes the candels and I begin a series of gestures with small hand-held flashlights.

When I felt that the gestures were complete I set the flashlights down and fell backwards on to the canvas. My last movement was to take the bucket of black tempra lying above my head and dump it over my head and body. Moxedano returns to light the candles. He then retrieves the bucket of melted wax - still liquid - and proceeds to pour it over my right hand, left hand and finally my chest. The action concludes with Moxedano assisting me off the canvas and out of the gallery.

The accompaning sound was created by adjusting the water faucet in the bathroom of Studio Morra to a certain water pressure that in turn created the sound. All of the video documentation of Traces part 1 was taken by Davide Aurrichio. Due to the sound level in the recordings I suggest setting your sound outputs to high before viewing the videos.

Part 1 (903 KB)      Part 2 (985 KB)      Part 3 (579 KB)      Part 4 (736 KB)     

Part 5 (770 KB)      Part 6 (840 KB)      Part 7 (833 KB)      Part 8 (3.7 MB)     

Part 9 (1.6 MB)      Part 10 (768 KB)      Part 11 (1 MB)      Traces Sampler (5.5 MB)







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