abstract
Faded scenes, an old-style truck carrying huge dripping tanks, in the meanwhile, a solemn voice in the background is celebrating Italy's industrial achievements in the oil exploration of Sinai, this is just a fragment of documentaries produced by Eni.
The images proposed belongs to the historical archive of Eni (Italian National Hydrocarbons Board), a corporation founded in 1953 by Enrico Mattei in Rome, Italy. It was initially a state corporation assigned to the exploration of natural gas and oil in the Italian territory and abroad.
Nowadays, it operates in many different regions all around the world, offering infrastructures for oil and natural gas extraction and manufactaring.
However, beside extracting towers, oil tankers and refineries, what caught my attention were wrinkled handhand curious gazes of local people that scanned the rhythm of the story.
Then, why would an oil corporation include footage of local people in daily life activities and routines? When is the moment in which human beings start being tools of propaganda?
Faded scenes, an old-style truck carrying huge dripping tanks, in the meanwhile, a solemn voice in the background is celebrating Italy's industrial achievements in the oil exploration of Sinai, this is just a fragment of documentaries produced by Eni.
The images proposed belongs to the historical archive of Eni (Italian National Hydrocarbons Board), a corporation founded in 1953 by Enrico Mattei in Rome, Italy. It was initially a state corporation assigned to the exploration of natural gas and oil in the Italian territory and abroad.
Nowadays, it operates in many different regions all around the world, offering infrastructures for oil and natural gas extraction and manufactaring.
However, beside extracting towers, oil tankers and refineries, what caught my attention were wrinkled handhand curious gazes of local people that scanned the rhythm of the story.
Then, why would an oil corporation include footage of local people in daily life activities and routines? When is the moment in which human beings start being tools of propaganda?
ENI UNCUT is an audio-visual installation as a final result of an investigation on Eni’s historical audio-visual archive. The core of the subject was a comparison of representation and propaganda strategies conducted by the main Italian Oil corporation (Eni) over the period of half a century. The study case was the city of Gela, located on the southern cost of Sicily, Italy; and its drastical moutation after Eni came into the landscape and community. The aim was to analyse the methodology of self-representation and story telling of an oil corporation.
