I am about to begin shooting a new video work titled, I yam what I yam… L'invenzione. It's based on two films that were shot in two separate locations on the island of Malta; Emidio Greco’s L'invenzione di Morel (1974) and Robert Altman’s Popeye (1980). Taking the narrative premise of L'invenzione di Morel and grafting it onto the set of Altman’s Popeye, the project draws parallels between cinema and the colonial project.
Greco's L'invenzione di Morel [original clip from film on left] is low-budget sci-fi film where the protagonist, washed a shore to an undisclosed location, explores the abandoned rooms and passageways of a peculiar modernist building that stands awkwardly on this otherwise untouched landscape. With no sigs of life anywhere Greco’s protagonist suddenly discovers it to be occupied by a group of rich bourgeoisie, only to realise that as quickly as they appear, they vanish. Greco’s film unwinds with his protagonist discovering that they are, in effect, phantoms reliving one week of their lives in a perpetual loop facilitated by a machine that is capable of reproducing reality – the invention of Morel. |
| The original set of Altmans Popeye still stands today. Echoing Greco’s plot, it exists as an open-air museum. The village hosts souvenir shops, eateries and entertainers dressed as Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto etc. perform dance routines backed by pop music for tourists on a pilgrimage to this otherwise forgotten Hollywood artifact. In this sense, it remains as a kind of archaeological site, cross fun park, cross life size monument to Popeye or perhaps Hollywood [see clip on right]. |
