Victor Faccinto
Program:
*16mm*
Exercise (13 mins.) hand altered 16mm film
Book of Dead (15 mins.) hand altered and bleached 16mm film
Filet of Soul (16 mins.) paper cutout animation
*Video*
Visual Remains, 2001 (5:50) altered and bleached 16mm film on DVD
Facts and Figures, 2012 (10:30) details from the lives of Thomas Edison, Teddy Roosevelt and Fatty Arbuckle
Information:
Nightmare, 2009 (7.5 mins.)
To Hell and Back, 2010 (13 mins.)
Digital animation of hand-altered and anatomically correct Barbie dolls with
overlapping and interacting live video actors.
The Video Vic character in Nightmare and To Hell and Back was created in 1969
and appeared in four 16mm animated films completed between 1969 and 1974.
These films were made from hand painted paper dolls and background sets.
Faccinto returned to animation in 2007. The digital video editing programs that
had become available offered tools that made it possible to combine real life
video, 3-D background sets and animated dolls into a living visual world of its
own.
To Hell and Back is a visual journey through levels of Hell revealing the
subsequent trials and revelations experienced by the film’s central character.
A hybrid documentary made with found and created visual materials, digitally
constructed into a visual presentation of selected details from the lives of
three American historical figures: Thomas Edison, Teddy Roosevelt and Fatty
Arbuckle.
northern California. He moved to NYC in 1974 where he continued his work as
a filmmaker and painter. Between 1972 and 1974 his early “Video Vic” animated
films were included in the New American Filmmaker’s Series at the Whitney
Museum of American Art as well as numerous national film festivals. In 1975 he
was selected for a Cineprobe screening at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
He was represented by and exhibited with Phyllis Kind Gallery, NYC from 1980
through 2006. Between 1994 and 2009 he developed and produced live multi-
screen, 16mm film projection performances. In 2007 he began experimenting
with digital video, evolving techniques used to create Video Sculptures, a series
recent video work. He is currently represented by Luise Ross Gallery, NYC.
Faccinto lives in North Carolina. He recently retired after 34 years as director of
the Hanes Art Gallery at Wake Forest University.
Artist statement:
Perhaps this is a shortcoming in view of current expectations that artists explain
their creativity in a few paragraphs, but the truth of the matter is that for the
most part I do not create what I think or plan in advance. My creative decisions
are made in real time during execution and directed by an instinctive visual
perception that decides right from wrong and guides my next move forward.
What it may mean or reference once completed, is always a surprise to me.
About my video sculptures
The primary driving force behind my recent video work lies in the “hunt,” a
timeless on-going process of exploration and experimentation in search of
new visual territory that may only be identified and captured at the moment it is
revealed.
In a process more akin to sculpture than linear filmmaking, I remove moving
images from their backgrounds and utilize them as bricks and lumber to construct
“video sculptures.”
Creating digital “video sculpture” is much like putting together a picture puzzle.
It begins with one or two pieces found in a box without the picture on the cover.
The expectation is a long term commitment coupled with a series journeys down
dead end streets, and a redundancy of labor parallel to that of a coal miner. The
rewards come during those brief moments of clarity when a new “puzzle piece”
reveals itself and another step may be taken forward.
