The Finger & the Moon #2
Performance: St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, May 2009
video: 2009-10, Italy, colours 12’38” two-channel video
The second step of the project consisted of an urban interactive performance at St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, on May 9, 2009. The live streaming of it was seen simultaneously in different galleries and locations around the world.
LIUBA went to S.Peter’s Square dressed as a nun. Looking carefully and up close, the nun dress was different from the one used by traditional religions, having many multi-religious references and details… It was designed by the artist with the cooperation of stylist Elisabetta Bianchetti.
As LIUBA arrived in S.Peter Square she began to pray in many different ways following the rituals of the world’s main religions and practices.
People reactions to the performance were not homogeneous: they went from disinterest to surprise to appreciation to meditation to the complaint. After more than one hour police stopped the artist saying it was not allowed to pray like that at the Vatican grounds.
Both for the symbolic value of the location and for the unpredictability of reactions, LIUBA decided to show the performance in a live stream in different galleries and places around the world, thus symbolically connected together.
Using the possibility of advanced technologies, The Finger and the Moon #2 has been exhibited with live streaming in galleries, artists studios, collectors houses and religious communities in a different part of the world.
The performance and the streaming connection began at 7 pm Italian time. They lasted until police stopped the artist, after more than one hour. (Read the dialogue between Liuba and police)
The streaming had been seen only in ‘real and physical locations’. People gathered in the galleries to watch the streamed, live performance that LIUBA was performing at Vatican City. There was a password, given only to the network locations, to connect to the streaming of the event.
The performance was recorded by two hidden cameramen: Barbara Fantini and Raymonda Gentile. Fantini’s footage was seen live in streaming, while Gentile’s were more focused on people reactions to the performance.
From the performance comes a two-channel video installation, a two-channel integral streaming video, a series of lambda print diptychs and a video still.
LIUBA (Italy)
I am a performance artist, video artist and site-specific interactive projects artist living at the moment in Milan and Rimini. I have been lived in New York and in Berlin as well, now I am back to Italy and I am a new mum! But I am and will be always a great traveller!
My work is concerned with social, anthropological, geographical, philosophical issues, human behaviour, interactivity and chance. My research is based on the analysis of contemporary society, investigating contradictions and social problems of daily life, with often an ironic approach.
My practice consists of site-specific actions that burst provocatively into daily life and of video works that assemble the performance, the reactions of people and the identities of the involved places. I am interested also in creating participative projects where the public takes direct part in the performance. I have been shown and have performed internationally, including at the Venice Biennial, The Armory Show New York, PAC Milan, Art Basel, Scope London, Artissima Tourin, Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, The Native Museum, Mashteuiasth and Canada. My work has been reviewed by Artnet Magazine, Flash Art International Magazine, IkonoTV, Artribune and others.
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