Ups And Downs

Student

Viola Silvi

Lecturer/s

Riccardo Previdi

Gerhard Glüher

Course topic/s

Project Warm-Up — Art 2021-22

Course/s

BA Art Warm-Up – Foundation Course

Year

2022

semester

Ever since I can remember I’ve had this very vivid way to represent time in my mind. I’ve mostly “used” this method to visualize my past years individually but through this task I explored it further and I tried to provide more examples.

The first thing I did was to practically represent this concept in a visible image by sketching it down, making it as close as possible to the image in my head. Starting from a circle (closed to represent a finished action and open for an ongoing one or one that’s part of a bigger action) the black peaks going outward represent positive events and those going inward the negative ones.

I followed this formula in the making of the four works.

Gallery

23 images, each graphically representing the years of my life from 1999 to 2021, with these two, being the only two open circles, marking the beginning and the “now”. Each black stroke is meant to be a memory.

Everyone knows the story. Its moral, the objective view of it are represented by the first circle, as it would be told by a narrator. The second is the same story but from the point of view of the wolf, who obviously has a very different feeling about the occurring events and doesn’t make it to the end of them making this an open circle. The third is the grandma, who doesn’t show up in the story until she gets eaten by the wolf. The fourth is the hunter who comes to the rescue and leaves the story right before it ends with the wolf’s body on his shoulders.

As I wanted to push this into something more, I traced a circle for each of The Lord of The Rings original trilogy movies. I did so by following the story and how the events are meant to be perceived rather than giving a personal review of them.

Going from 756 BC to 476 AD I went through the major events of the Roman Empire and came up with this result of “how they teach them”, because I couldn’t possibly get a view that was closer to reality. Opening with the Monarchy and its seven kings, moving to The Republic and its wars and ending with the crisis that led to its end. If I were to portray it from the point of view of singular invaders or emperors such as Nero, I’m sure the outcome would be the opposite of this.