The topographical starting point of The Empirical Effect is the area around Mount Vesuvius in Southern Italy. The protagonists of the film are all survivors of the last active eruption of the volcano in 1944 and live in the so-called “Red Zone” – the immediate danger zone of the volcano. The recordings were made in an abandoned observatory near to the crater, and also include the staging of a trial evacuation. Fact and fiction in The Empirical Effect are blurred:
“The absurd is equal to argument. Different systems of enquiry (cinematic, documentary, scientific, amateur, mystical, theatrical) co-exist, there is no truth in that sense. We are not being told anything, no fact, no story, no opinion. This series of scenes is not the portrait of common experience, but its interpretation into emblematic representations of ideas, translations into a field of performance and representation – and by being so is closer to something material, as opposed to further away from it. The security of a grand narrative promised by the film’s opening is destabilised into a variety of modes through which this situation might be thought or experienced rather than told, as being in and of a medium.” — Ian White, in: Rosa Barba: „White Is An Image“, Hatje Cantz, 2011
The Empirical Effect, 2010
16mm film transferred to digital, color, sound, 22 min
Images 1, 2, 3: Film still © Rosa Barba
Image 4: Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2017. Photo: Agostino Osio © Rosa Barba
The Empirical Effect, 2010 has been on display at the following locations:
cccod, Tours, 2022
Video Ex, Zürich, 2022
Wäinö Altnonen Museum of Art, 2020/2021
Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara, 2021
ZAC Palermo, 2021
CCA, 2019
Tabakalera, San Sebastian, 2018
Kunsthalle Bremen, 2018
Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2017
Albertinum, Dresden, 2015
MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2012 (VDB)
Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2011
Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean Mudam, Luxembourg, 2011
Sprueth Magers, B erlin, 2010
New Museum, New York, 2010
Fondazione Beyeler, Basel, 2010
Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, Paris, 2010
Sprüth Magers, Berlin, 2010
Laboratorio de Arte Alameda, Mexico City, 2010
Gothenborg Biennale, 2009
The Empirical Effect, 2010 has been screened at the following locations:
Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, 2023
Lo Schermo dell’Arte, Florence, 2022
Degrowth and Progress, L’international Online, 2021
Institute of Contemporary Arts London, London, 2016
Wisconsin Union, Directorate Film Committee, Madison, Wisconsin, 2016
MoMA, New York, 2016
Institute of Contemporary Arts London, London, 2015
International Film Festival, Rotterdam (nominated for Tiger award)
The Walk Reale Osservatorio Vesuviano