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         Films
_Tales from the Mountaintop
_Repulsion System for Productive Lands   
_The Smiler
_The Privilege of Acting
_Terra Asciutta  
_Engagement Rate Formula
_The New Man and my Father
_EMPTY PAGE. Protecting our own
_Glories of a Forgotten Future
_Surplus Production Line
_The Making of Forty Rectangular Pieces for a Floor Construction
_How is a Storehouse Built
_Here, everybody takes care of me
_Night Watch


         Video Archives
_Instructions from the Great Beyond
_Moments that Shaped the World (serie)
_El EXPLOTE. Statistic Department
_Omertà
_Ovation


         Drawing Series
_Department for planning and destruction of Cuban economy


         Installations
_Land of Plenty
_Anechoic Room
_Covert Planning
_Productivity Control System
_The Power of the Working Class
_The Best Effort
_Dreams Production Plan for State-Run Companies
_The Value of Absence
_357.890 sqm Planned


         Photography Series
_Replacement Points
_Time to Relax
_STOCK


         Solo Exhibitions
_2768. 23,53. 8. 1958. 57%. 1000 (2020) 
_Land of Plenty (2018)
_Selective Memory (2018)
_Absolute silence does not exist (2017)
_EMPTY PAGE. Protecting our own (2016)
_Selected Works (2016)
_CENTRUM (2015)
_Surplus Production Line (2014)
_Time to Relax (2013)
_The Value of Absence (2013)
_STOCK (2012)
_New Production Structures (2012)


         Catalogues

_The Value of Absence (2013)
_The Paradox of Labour - a reader to the work of Adrian Melis (2021)


         Lectures, seminars, workshops

_The Paradox of Art and Labour - Sociopolitical practices as form of artistic expressions


@ copyright Adrian Melis.
All rights reserved by the author
Last update, Nov 2023


Mark

Terra Asciutta (Dry Land) was curated by Chiara Pirozzi and Alessandra Troncone, in collaboration with Associazione VerginiSanità, as part of the program Underneath the Arches at the archaeological site of Acquedotto Augusteo del Serino in Naples.

Terra Asciutta (Dry Land)
     (2020)


         Produced in Naples, Italy
Performative action and sound installation documented in video
Video, HD h.264, colour, stereo 8:33 min

watch video on Vimeo

         Engaging in a dialogue with both the remnants of the aqueduct and the people who live and work in the neighbourhood, Adrian Melis, the third artist invited to participate in the ‘Underneath the Arches’ programme, created a production chain meant to reactivate the course of what is no longer there: water. To this end, Melis made use of Foley Art, a technique used in cinema that can reproduce specific sounds using different types of objects. The water that once ran in the channels of the Roman aqueduct, supplying the area completely, is therefore merely evoked and remains absent. In its place, objects collected in the neighbourhood, together with the same walls that delineate the perimeter of the space, become unexpected sound bodies in the hands of local inhabitants, recruited to a specific task: to restore a function for the imposing structure. The artist lived in the neighbourhood for several months, meeting people, entering into the folds of its social dynamics, compounded or revealed with the health emergency. Reflecting on the gap between the ‘active’ and necessary function the aqueduct had in the past and the ‘passive’ and conservative role that the site conserving its remnants has, he involved some of the residents as a workforce, turning a contemplative space into a productive one. In this resolve to rediscover its original function, the aqueduct takes on another one, completely contemporary: instead of a water resource, for a few hours, it becomes a resource for work and social gathering. Therefore, Adrian Melis’ work reflects on the concept of ruin on multiple levels, establishing a link between the remnants visible at the archaeological site and the difficulties of the present. This duality is encapsulated in the title, ‘Terra asciutta’: a dry place due to the absence of water, and the absence of structure and security, from which alternative forms of work that use creativity and ingenuity as raw materials arise. The artist becomes an activator of a process already underway in the neighbourhood and in the city, recreating a workplace, a half-hidden, alive and dynamic workshop, and equipped with all the necessary tools for carrying out the set task. Each worker finds his/her own place, working hard to achieve a common goal: trace and reproduce the sound as faithful to water as possible, handling material while aspiring to an intangible product like sound. The soundtrack that resonates in the space once the workers have left their stations is the memory of a collective act that conserves the evidence of human presence just as the objects left in this temporary workshop do, clues that reveal the process with which the ancient aqueduct returned, almost magically, to live in the present.
         text by Alessandra Troncone and Chiara Pirozzi

Photo Credits: Antonio Picascia





Mark