artefacto collective – Week 2 – Agon
Jun 18, 2023
This week, we continued experimenting with film making to translate our research on different materials, drawings, and writings. We were inspired by different mythologies and philosophical narratives, such as the Banquet by Plato and the Greek symbolism of various plants and fruits around Casa Sasso. We focused on the term ‘agon,’ which could be defined as the dramatic conflict between main characters, which is present in the Classical theater, literature, and religion.
In our film, the protagonist is an architect advocating a particular cause or an idea – that is, the preservation of traditional materials and construction techniques within modern architecture. The antagonist, who is in opposition to the idea from the protagonist, becomes the constant pressure to modernize and progress to build efficient structures that tend to forget the virtues of vernacular ways of living. Through this narrative, the conflict arises from the encounter of these two opposed realities, which the architect, the protagonist, has to conceal. Light is the guiding spirit in our story, and the stone symbolizes the conflict that the protagonist has been carrying. The non-material symbol of light takes a feminine human form in the film, who continuously confronts the protagonist to face the existence of the conflict.
While developing this film, we realized the importance of new ways of approaching it by breaking the linearity of the narratives and introducing a non-logical flow. We have been playing with oneiric scenarios through different installations and myths. The purpose of this is to liberate the protagonist from his conflict by a closer contact with the guiding spirit through an unlikely encounter. This event becomes a turning-point for the protagonist by giving him the opportunity for new beginnings.
Yunni and Bernardo