Abstract

A video artwork from the Via Ferrata research project.Via Ferrata (Iron Way) developed during WW1, is a system aiding movement to gain the strategic mountain summits of the Alps/Dolomites. It exists as installed metal rungs and wires up otherwise inaccessible mountainsides.Using experiential and the poetically expanded possibilities of (it and the term) Via Ferrata the research pioneers field research (climbing Via Ferrata, making drawings, texts and lens based footage) with desk research (WW1 Italian Front in WW1, the development of Via Ferrata and the wider contexts of Modernism, Fascism, Futurism and Environmentalism within European history) and creative studio research. In this it aims to articulating a socio-phenomenological engagement with place.Bivacco is one of a series of related outcomes from the Via Ferrata research project and it closely relates to installations (Ulster Iron Way, Delawab, Belfast 2010), and exhibitions(Still not out of the woods, The Mac Belfast 2012), Graphic / text artworks (Every Metal Thing is Being Beckoned, Aliceday, Brussels 2011) and public art commissions (A fresh Via Ferrata… ACCA, Australia 2012).Bivacco develops an embodied methodology connecting it to a discursive context of climbing together (Shipsides and Beggs). Following the via ferrata route on Mt Marmolada and attaching a camera to the wire as we climb the artwork hinges on a close encounter with a lighting storm triggering creative responses and allowing poetic connections with history, society and culture.Funding:Expands new methodologies grounded in two AHRC awards (£52,000 and £44,000)ACCA (£5000)UU RIAD (£900+£1600)The MAC (£1500)Aliceday (£500)Outcome published:Invited + Commissioned (related new work): Desire Lines, ACCA, Australia (2012)Invited: Still Not Out of The Woods, The MAC, Belfast (2012)Invited: Vigil|Star, Aliceday Gallery, Brussels (2011)Invited: Bivacco|Star, Third Space, Belfast (2011) Invited: Death to Delawab Art Space, Belfast (2010)