Joao Prosperi
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Joao Prosperi is an experimental moving-image artist who has an extensive background in video editing. He was shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards in 2019 and he describes his work as “high-impact visual media, combining technical precision with experimentation”.
The moving-image works of Joao Prosperi are not narrative-based but rather capture visual fragments and conceptual-conveyance on sensory experiences. His notable works of an untitled reel portraying an aquarium and Da Ode À Ação (or From Ode to Action when translated from Portuguese to English), which is a moving-image piece depicting women in glamour but with an analogue, grainy aesthetic and luring performative actions. In Joao Prosperi’s portfolio, we will find moving-image fragments which offer vivid distortion and are enhanced with in-camera editing techniques and / or post-production. Despite these modestly-applied effects, there remains a sfumato-based analogue experience in the works because the alterations are crudely applied and contain basic effects you would find in basic antiquated software or video technology. Beyond the effects, we will find the actual footage to be highly engaging of selectively chosen subject matter of figurative elements engaging in social-distancing. Distancing in the sense where the actor (or element of an actor) is engaging with the camera and direction, rather than in a socially-engaging context. This experience leaves footage which is charming to observe the actor as they bask in their own presence, and even at times, their own sense of vanity or confidence.
Da Ode À Ação (pictured above) can arguably be described as Joao’s most complex and lucid moving-image fragment. In the video, we will find actors engaging with their surroundings, whether emerging from the darkness to reveal a sense of glitter-based glamour, harkoning towards a mirror with enchanted connotations, or a woman’s stilettos being analyzed amidst lucid backgrounds and settings of neon colors. In combination, these moments reflect beauty, solemn reflection, altered-realities, and a sense of mindfulness which has reflect on the moments which matter. As a result, these moving-image fragments are a conveyance on the value of time and implores us to cherish the pieces of experiences which are particularly meaningful, either with ourselves or others.
With an experimental attitude and sense of urban grit, the moving-image fragments of Joao Prosperi represent short reels which alter reality while at the same time bring the ‘focusing of the lens’ which highlight sensory experiences as vital to our understanding of time and action. Joao takes ordinary circumstances and applies analogue aesthetics and conceptual conveyance to move us towards a deeper unconscious synopsis of our collective lives. Through frozen moments in time, captured through the sustained magic of moving-image, Joao Prosperi reveals a dichotomy between shifting planes and actualized realism through careful framing of performative actions while at the same time applying lucid distortions applied in a uniquely casual and smeared manner.
