PERFROMANCE:
FLAG SEMAPHORES
26 June 2021, 8pm
Piazzetta Mario Pagano, Pietragalla, Basilicata



Flag Semaphores is a performance that chronicled the artists and their expanded community as the phenomenological effects of global pandemic unfolded, creating a collective portraiture of civic unrest and personal reinvention. It included a visual archive of one year, starting in May 2020, presented alongside a film of the Basilicata region, produced over the residency at Castello San Basilio in June 2021.
Part public video installation, part live performance, performer Gabriella Rhodeen guided the audience through the video installation. Luca Torzella provided the same direction in Italian. Environmental sound design and music by Jennie Liu scored the event. Original text was written by Director Jesse Bonnell.


Our on-going series, 'Flag Semaphores' looks at a variety of material centered on visual and verbal communication to phantom spaces and people across vast distances. In this short film, ‘Eboli’ we pay homage to one of the first pieces of source material we encountered in the fall of 2019. The memoir, ‘Christ Stopped at Eboli’ by Carlo Levi, is a deep inquiry into the effects of fascism, poverty, death, and civic redemption. The parallels to our shared global moment are clear. In the coming weeks we will be creating more short films with a variety of close collaborators. The full collection forms the full semblance of Flag Semaphores. - GRJB
GRJB, Flag Semaphores 01: Eboli, 2020
Single-channel video, 4'46min
GRJB, Flag Semaphores 02: Passenger Seat, 2020
Single-channel video, 3'15min
In Flag Semaphores 01, GRJB drove to the desert surrounding Los Angeles during lockdown and shot scenes to accompany the first chapter of Carlo Levi’s memoir. Flag Semaphores 02, written and performed by artist Alex Barlas, is a stream of consciousness about far off places, his father and the limits of empathy, captured within the confines of Barlas’ car parked in a Los Angeles garage. Flag Semaphores 03 is “a lullaby in reverse,” a haunting recitation by performer Sarajean Francois. Additional instalments of the film series will be released throughout the remainder of 2020 and into 2021.
GRJB, Flag Semaphores 03: Anti-Lullaby, 2020
Single-channel video, 1'40min
GRJB, Los Angeles, 2020
Single-channel video, 1'53 min