"Los Dias y Los Noches de las Muertas" by Francesca da Rimini
“A ghost work of counter-memories, opening thresholds of impossibilities outside of pan-capitalism -- a drifting carnival of souls which gathers together the spectres of recombinant desires, US military residue, dead girls and Zapatistas.” -Los Dias y Los Noches de las Muertas Description
About the Work
Los Dias y Los Noches de las Muertas is a hypermedia kinetic fiction piece created by Francesca da Remini. Though the work highlights revolts worldwide, one of its main focuses was the violent treatment of demonstrators by police at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa. The work was also inspired by a meeting with Ricardo Dominguez, whose work on the Electronic Disturbance Theater Timeline highlighted the war waged against Mexian Zapatistas in 1998. Some of the work’s central themes are anti-violence, peaceful protest, and anti-globalism, along with the excess of global capitalism.
When entering the site, a 25 minute audio recording plays narration, music, crying, shouting, and other sounds denoting violence and heartbreak. In addition to providing links to resources and descriptions of the G8 revolt, a pop-up window displaying four pieces of constantly changing text and imagery are also provided. The images consist of violence, capitalism, graffitti, and protest, while the text speaks of world peace, space exploration, economics, unity, and world domination. Also available is a long page of credits, attributing the concept, coding, and graphics to Francesca da Rimini and the sound to Michael Grimm and Kevin Henderson. Additionally, financial assistance is credited to the Visual Arts Craft Fund of the Australia Council.
About the Author
Francesca da Remini is a new media artist living in Australia. She has also been known as doll yoko, liquid_nation, and GashGirl. Having worked in the field since 1984, she has created a number of electronic works and net art including Flesh Meat, Identity Runners, and Soft Accidents. She also worked with the cyberfeminist artists’ collective VNS Matrix during the 1990s, and was awarded the New Media Fund Fellowship by the Australia Council in 1999. In her online biography, Francesca da Remini explains her fascination with the net, stating that “I like the freedom of ghostliness … it's easier to slip through the predictable binary reductionist screen/s to a space which once again feels uncolonised by histories … sometimes the net is the only space where I don't feel crazy … maybe because it is the only safe space to be completely excessive.”
Screenshots
Here is the homepage of Francesca da Rimini's "Los Dias y Los Noches de las Muertos". It provides instructions on how to view the work, as well as a download of the 25 minute audio clip that plays in the background. From here, users can also access the pop-up window with changing images and text and links to resources.
This is a pop-up window, divided into four sections with changing text and imagery. Themes of violence, capitalism, protest, economics, and world domination.
Here is the popup window with another combination of images. Though these change automatically, users can also click on one of the four spaces to change them at their own pace.
This image links users to an online dossier regarding G8.
This is a screenshot of the credits page, where sources for sound and imagery are listed. Creators and contributors to the work are also listed.
This image links out to an essay written by Wu-Ming Yi regarding G8. There are multiple of these for the user to explore.
Links to the work
"Los Dias y Los Noches de las Muertas" has been recorded in Rhizome's webrecorder. Additionally, it has been crawled by the Wayback Machine. A link to Remini's plate in The Progressive Dinner Party is also provided below.
View "Los Dias y Los Noches de las Muertas" in the Webrecorder
View the web archive link
View Plate
“27th G8 Summit.” Wikipedia. Last edited 6 July 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27th_G8_summit. Accessed 6 July 2019.
Brousseau, Simon. “los días y las noches de los muertos.” ALN | NT2 . 2010, http://nt2.uqam.ca/fr/repertoire/los-dias-y-las-noches-de-los-muertos-0. Accessed 6 July 2019.
“Da Remini Bio.” subsol.c3.hu. http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors/dariminibio.html. Accessed 6 July 2019.
Da Remini, Francesca. “Credits.” los días y las noches de los muertos. https://dollyoko.thing.net/LOSDIAS/CREDITZ.HTM. Accessed 6 July 2019.
Hoskin, Teri. “da Rimini and Tonkin: the viewer at work.” RealTime Magazine. Issue #54 April-May 2003, pg. 23. http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue54/7056. Accessed 6 July 2019.
“TDR: The Drama Review.” Project Muse. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/43230. Accessed 6 July 2019.
