Silent Nights (2007) Video 00:30 (still)
Silent Nights (2007) Video 00:30 (still)
Limassol, The Mirror Stage, curated by Yiannis Colakides, Lanitis Foundation, September 2008
Macerata, Nothing Is Too Strange to Be True, curated by Cristina Petrelli, Fuorizona Artecontemporanea Gallery, October 2007
Macerata, Nothing Is Too Strange to Be True, curated by Cristina Petrelli, Fuorizona Artecontemporanea Gallery, October 2007
Silent Nights is a video showing the opening of a lift compartment in the dead of night.
I used to spend time with a person whose home and studio were in a loft in the Nizza Millefonti neighborhood of Turin, not far from the railway line. One evening, while we were on the large terrace that crowns the building, I saw the darkness broken by the opening of the home elevator’s doors, which ended its journey in a cabin built above the terrace. Even the sound of the warning bell when the doors opened seemed particularly ringing, amid the continuous noise that came from the streets of that very busy area.
I therefore decided to film this sort of technological epiphany. Having never made a video before, I asked a video operator named Rafael Eduardo Cejas to take this shot for me. Thus was born the video that I presented for the first time at Rome at the end of 2001. Later, I wanted to redo the video with better equipment. I returned to that terrace twice more, until I decided that it was enough.
© Cristiano Berti
2024
Objects of more or less common use, recognizable places are the areas of research of Cristiano Berti. A night city view, still and quiet is the protagonist of Silent Nights, where the magic of darkness becomes the scenery of a delicate epiphany. It’s a 30” short video, which, while leaving us surprised and spellbound, suggests the artist viewpoint and his own attitude in analysing the reality.
© Cristina Petrelli
excerpt from «Cristiano Berti: Nothing is Too Strange to be True», in Niente è troppo strano per essere vero, exhibition flyer, Macerata: Fuorizona Artecontemporanea, 2007
The video of Silent Nights was filmed for the first time in 2001 in MiniDV and later in 2005 in DVCam and then in 2007 in HDV (the films differ only by the equipment used); the first version was filmed in MiniDV and it was 2 minutes long; the second version was filmed in DVCam in 2005; the final version was filmed in HDV. These two are both 30 seconds long.
Silent Nights (2001 – 2007): Video
00:30. BETA SP / DVD
Untitled (2001): Camera and editing by Rafael Eduardo Cejas
Silent Nights (2007): Camera and editing by Antonio Lucarini
2012
Vertigo of Reality, curated by Gabriele Tinti, with a text by Luigi Fassi, Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, Italy
2010
Fetish Club, P74 Center and Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2007
Nothing Is Too Strange to Be True, curated by Cristina Petrelli, Fuorizona Artecontemporanea Gallery, Macerata, Italy
2001
Silent Nights, with a text by Paulo Barone, AOC F58, Rome, Italy
2008
The Mirror Stage, curated by Yiannis Colakides, Lanitis Foundation, Limassol, Cyprus
2009
Silent Nights, video screening (October 31), Giguk 2009 Videoart Festival, Atelierhaus Trafo, Giessen, Germany
Silent Nights, video screening (September 24 – October 11) in Pixilerations [v.6]: The Great Disruption, 6th Festival of Digital and Interactive Media, Cable Car Cinema, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Silent Nights, video screening (June 25 – 30) in Cross-Talks, 2nd Crosstalk Video Art Festival, Gödör Klub, Budapest, Hungary
Silent Nights, video screening (April 17), 1st Terminal Short Video Festival, Terminal at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee, USA
Silent Nights, video screening (February 3 – 14) in All Art Now, 1st International Video Art Festival, Damascus, Syria
2007
Silent Nights, video screening (November 21 – 25), Trunk – The Nordic Video Art Festival, Östersund, Sweden
Silent Nights, video screening (August 18 – 19), 4th One Minute Film and Video Festival, Aarau, Switzerland
2012
Cristiano Berti. Vertigine del Reale/Vertigo of Reality, exhibition catalogue, Turin: Allemandi (ISBN 978-88-422-2104-3), pp. 96 – 99, 163 – 164
2010
Megla, Maja, «Transformacije v nove zgodbe», Delo (Ljubljana), LII, 79: April 7, p. 21
2008
The Mirror Stage, ed. by Yiannis Colakides, exhibition catalogue, Limassol: NeMe (ISBN 978-9963-8932-2-5), p. 21
2007
«Macerata. Fuorizona Artecontemporanea», Segno (Pescara), XXXII, 215: October – November, p. 67
«Niente è troppo strano per essere vero», Voce della Vallesina (Jesi), Cultura e attualità, LV, 36: October 14 – 20, p. 5
Petrelli, Cristina, «Cristiano Berti: Nothing is Too Strange to be True/ Niente è troppo strano per essere vero», in Niente è troppo strano per essere vero, exhibition flyer, Macerata: Fuorizona Artecontemporanea
2002
Mulatero, Ivana, [exhibition review] Juliet Art Magazine (Trieste), Spray Italia, XXII, 106: February – March, pp. 77 – 78