Montages

Montage, today, is a widespread procedure that doesn’t concern just artistic production, but also our daily lives and the use everyone makes of that huge visual archive that contemporary media place at our disposal. In a technologically advanced society, where the notion of postproduction regulates our relationship with images and objects, it is therefore necessary to thoroughly investigate the role, possibilities, and, most of all, anthropological and political connotations of montage; and to ask ourselves whether – in comparison to the heroic years of the avant-garde movements – montage has become a faded and standardized practice or if it is a more and more effective means to understand and reprogramme the world, especially in relation to the technical possibilities offered by new media and remix practices.

Cristina Baldacci, PhD in Contemporary Art History and Theory, was postdoctoral researcher at Università Iuav di Venezia, and is currently fellow at ICI Berlin. She is also a curator of exhibitions and a critic for art magazines. Her research interests focus on the archive and atlas as visual forms of knowledge; montage and reenactment strategies; contemporary sculpture and installation art; art and new media. She recently released the monograph Archivi impossibili. Un’ossessione dell’arte contemporanea (2016).
Marco Bertozzi is Professor of Documentary and Experimental Cinema at Università Iuav di Venezia and filmmaker. He has published numerous studies on documentary cinema and the relationships between cinema, architecture, and the city. His latest books are: Storia del documentario italiano (2008); Recycled Cinema (2012); Documentario come Arte. Riuso, performance, autobiografia nell’esperienza del cinema contemporaneo (2018). As a filmmaker, Bertozzi has directed, among others, Roman Notes (2004), Predappio in luce (2008) and Cinema grattacielo (2017).