/21 Crime

M.F.G. Paltrinieri/Mirko Smerdel/Discipula

The Looking Game

The Looking Game is a project exploring the archive of pictures taken by Rodney Alcala, serial killer and amateur photographer, active between the late 60s and the 70s and imprisoned in Death Row since 1980.

The work takes as its starting point the connection between Alcala’s pictures and the alias he adopted while on the run from the police: John Berger, the same name as the famous British art critic and author of the groundbreaking TV documentary “Ways of Seeing”. Only a coincidence or did Alcala know about John Berger?

Taking the form of publication and installation, the Looking Game sets up a dialogue between Berger’s words and some of the images taken from Alcala’s archive of pictures, calling into question the act of looking as well as the processes of production and consumption of photographic images.

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