Introduction

Rosa Barba’s Is it a two-dimensional analogy or a metaphor? is an exhibit, presented from 28 February to 4 July 2010, entirely constructed around, and inspired by, water and light – the fundamental elements of the island of Vassivière in the heart of France. The lake around the island is used metaphorically as a screen and its nature is revealed by a cinematographic light.

Chiara Parisi, director of the Centre international d’art et du paysage, and Andrea Viliani, director of the Fondazione Galleria Civica-Centro di Ricerca sulla Contemporaneità of Trento, invited Rosa Barba, whose work drew plaudits at the 2009 Biennial Venice, to produce a project for the island. It is a place often perceived as an idyllic natural landscape, but is actually a man-made construct.

Is it a two-dimensional analogy or a metaphor? questions the essence and even the function of cinema. Here the artist explores the cinematographic image both as a reconstruction of reality and as an illusion.

In her films, Rosa Barba develops an interest in unusual places or improbable situations, which she films mainly in 16mm, sometimes using celluloid as well as pre-existing documents to create works that reflect on the structure of film both as a medium and as a physical presence. Based on social and cultural research, her films are conceived by assembling a set of very specific circumstances. She creates installations in which the spectator can find themselves observing a projector as a piece of sculpture, hearing its sounds and perceiving its movements.

Rosa Barba’s work constructs a mythology based on multitude of viewpoints, but above all on utopian, naturalist and scientific notions. Is it a two-dimensional analogy or a metaphor? presents itself as a process in which film and, more broadly, cinema, has been dismembered and divided into different components such as sound, pure light and the physical film tape itself: a first projector is placed in the lighthouse, built by Aldo Rossi, from where powerful beams of light are directed across the gallery building towards the small theatre. Here, at sunset, a second projector illuminates the waters of the lake where irregular movements underscore the mysterious submerged presence of a work formed by sound frequencies.