A Sci-Fi Noir Suspended Between Dusk and Dawn

Luca: I am an Italian pianist, composer and visual artist based in Rome. Over the years, the study of music has opened me to new perspectives of use and approach and today multimedia is the language in which I feel most at ease.

Jacopo: First of all many thanks for inviting me to participate in this cool project, it’s a real pleasure! I am Jacopo Bellelli, I’m 37 years old, I am Italian but have been living in Brussels for 8 years. At the moment I work as a communication manager in the creative sector (theatre & cinema primarily) and am passionate about photography and cinema since childhood. I began practicing film photography as an autodidact in 2007 and then attended some digital photography courses in 2009 and 2010. Since 2019, I have been developing my photography activity further, mainly on film, and I focused on developing further my style, as a means of creating a visual world where my artistic, visual and literary inspirations all converge. When it comes to visual imagery, I am also passionate about cinematography and sometimes I work on small productions as a camera trainee or assistant.

Can you share some projects that you’ve worked on and are most proud of?

Luca: The immersive shows for which I wrote part of the concept, curated the musical direction and composed the original soundtrack for.

Jacopo: I am not a full time photographer, at least until now, and I haven’t had the opportunity to work on many professional projects so far. However, I am very happy with what I was able to accomplish with photography in the last two years, both as a means of self-expression and as artistic activity. This year, in particular, I participated in my first collective exhibition, I directed and filmed my first music video, I started working on some more professional shooting projects and also gained some exciting experience as a camera assistant. I really did not expect any of that when I got back to photography a few years ago and am confident the best is yet to come.

What has cross media collaborations taught you most? 

Jacopo: This is my first experience with this kind of cross media collaboration, but the link between different artistic elements and approaches is really fundamental for me. Having been a semi professional musician with a passion for visual imagery and now a photographer with a passion for music and art, I have always tried to let my artistic passions inspire each other. Photography and cinema, for example, have something very musical for me. I really love when some images flow and have a groove, it’s like a dance. In the same way, music and literature have a great impact on my visual inspiration. Good music, in particular, can really let us travel to other places, sometimes even other worlds. This is surely the case listening to Luca’s impressive tracks. Beside the artistic element, getting in contact with other artists and discovering their work is always an enriching experience.

Luca: Communicating means passing a message from a sender to a recipient using a common language that is understandable and clear to both parties. In the case of cross-media collaborations, the languages are different even if the goal is the same. This therefore leads to having to find an alternative grammar that accepts the characteristics of the different languages and exposes their content in a clear way. Often the emotion that is the basis of artistic expression becomes the element that unites them, thus giving the multimedia a stronger and more complex impact.

How would you describe the story of this instalment from your perspective?

Luca: I wanted to describe that particular moment when the night meets the day, those instants in which one seeks in solitude to steal the secret of the transformation of darkness into light. Those feelings totally found a reciprocity in Jacopo’s beautiful shots.

Jacopo: I am a true lover of urban life and love spending time exploring the city and looking around. For me the most interesting moments the urban reality can offer to the photographic eye are often suspended between dusk and dawn. When sunlight fades and artificial light comes alive a world on its own emerges. A kind of science-fiction place, which can be fascinating but sometimes also mysterious and intimidating. Talking about this project, I really like Luca’s music. I think it mixes electronic and aethereal elements in a very interesting way and allows my pictures to find their perfect dimension, the one I had in mind when I originally took them. The musical and visual elements together create a surreal world I truly enjoy.