GRANDE ANARCA

Grande Anarca was inspired by the style of a short story by J.G. Ballard,
"Answers to a questionnaire".
It is a vivid account of a genetic experiment carried out in a block of flats.

Grande Anarca is a short animation film made in successive levels. Thebackground images have
been drawn, photographed and, subsequently, projected as slides; they were then shot in 35mm, 
so as to obtain the film which, frame after frame, would then be painted on and etched; digital
post-production amounted to the final stage.

Since the outset of the project there has always been the intention of working with some people 
in particular. So it has been. 
The soundtrack was writtem by Mr. Egle Sommacal, guitarist of Ulan Bator and Massimo Volume. 
Ms. Ermanna Montanari from Teatro delle Albe lends her voice to the project.
Animation by Alvise Renzini, script by Lucio Apolito, editing by Benedetto Lanfranco 
and producd by Opificio Ciclope Ciclope.

Opificio Ciclope is a joint tradename.
It is founded on a shared interest for interacting, mixed techniques and hybrid formats. 
So far its varied output - music videos, animation, TV graphics and documentaries - may seem 
widely diverging, but it is bound together by the common thread of method and visual imagery.

VOICE OFF

01> Corals.
02> Light.
03> A face-shaped flower vase.
04> Glaciers.
05> Emerald green.
06> Science fiction books: Fritz Leiber, James Ballard, Stanislaw  Lem.
07> October 7th, 1964.
08> Presently unemployed.
09> Unknown.
10> Single.
11> Not at the moment.
12> Me.
13> 1973 measles, 1975 chicken pox, 1980 a fractured rib.
14> 1985 a car accident.
15> The first meeting was held at the Antares Hotel in Corso Buenos Aires, Milan, April 13th, 1981. Later, a second meeting was held at the Pavoni Theatre in July.
16> The apartment building sported a single front and a blank wall  in the back.    
17> No, no other life forms were allowed.
18> Only units and floors provided the tenants with position status.
19> The only decorative plants allowed were bouquets of dried or   artificial flowers.
20> Tenants were selected from thousands of applicants.
21> Yes, I think it was a crucial event in my life.

22> Apartments were identical in shape, size, and decors.
    The building was divided into 22 units, identified with a letter. Each unit had 8 floors. Each floor housed 64 persons in as many apartments. The whole of the tenants were divided in 4 groups: A, T, C, G. The building contained 5632 persons.
23> I was part of the original project team, and I came up with several of the ideas in the experiment.
24> From 1989 to 1993.
25> The look of the building neither surprised nor impressed me, I think we can safely call it a plain looking, large sized apartment building.
26> Movement inside the building was allowed only for multiple sequences of tenants, provided they belonged to all four groups.
27> According to which group they belonged to, a limited number of candidates were placed in the A, T, C, G tenements at the sides of the building.
28> In the event of a death inside the building, an inhabitant from the tenements would replace the deceased tenant.
29> I don’t think their names have any importance.
30> All the tenants were aware of the nature of the experiment in different ways. I would not therefore paint in-house relations as unconscious.
31> They were deeply involved in the experiment, and they talked about it regularly: when they met on the stairs or in the garden, or during building meetings.
32> Each tenant had to spend 4 hours with the other three individuals on his team, then 8 hours on his own. He had to write 4 pages a day. In the early stages, that was how we looked for similar descriptions, cross-references, reoccurring words. At a later stage, they were forced to write about their personal desires. Finally, about their dreams.
33> In each apartment, a pneumatic system provided food rations in exchange for the reports. Locks were automatically operated. To open the doors, tenants had to deliver their daily reports.
34> Mutations, not mistakes.
35> No, I was in charge of systems maintenance on my floor.
36> The building was a to-scale replica of the DNA from algae. 
    Tenants represented nucleotides.
37> We wanted to communicate directly with the DNA, with no go-betweens.
38> We wanted to endow it with some sort of awareness.
39> By collecting the tenants’ dreams.
40> We measured everything: heartbeats, the patterns created on the windows by electric light, decibels. Everything.
41> That was to become the meaning of the experiment.
42> Some say it was, like for any other life form.
43> B: heuristic meaning.
44> F: religious meaning.
45> We were unsatisfied with the current level of genetic research.
46> Just like any other building, even though it provided a fair degree of security.
47> No, not even when the experiment was banned. Everything was in perfect working order.
48> During the third stage, the building started to emit a frequency at night, while the tenants slept. The wave reached a range of over 20 kilometers. Suddenly everyone was aware of the experiment.
49> The wave from the building reverberated through the dreams of whoever lived in the area. It was those obsessive dreams that spurred the riots.
50> Lies, now as before, you keep repeating your lies.
51> That was not our purpose.
52> I would rather not talk about that.
53> Several such buildings were destroyed by mistake.
54> Scientific research is not a democratic system, nor should it be.
55> The experiment could be repeated. 
    Do you live in an apartment building?