Petróleo México (2005) by Roberto Paci Dalò. Screening January 17th at 9pm PST.

Agamben says: "the face is the single place of the community, the only possible city." Petróleo México is a visual and sonorous meditation that moves between sweeping wide views of the city and faces that, without warning, unconsciously emerge from the crowd to become protagonists. A game of correspondence is created between images from today and their extraordinary likeness to the faces of Mexican antiquity in a place where myth is prevalent.

This work is the result of a residency project and performance at "Bienal de la radio" in Mexico City in May 2004. The work in Mexico involved collecting video images from the city and mixing these as a live cinema piece with a soundtrack provided by both musicians on stage and remote audio streams. The piece was one of three experimental videos to be shown at the 58th Lacarno Film Festival (2005). Roberto Paci Dalò has produced many works for live cinema (narrative digital-film improvisations) and networked projects between performance spaces.