Eclipse

Project Overview

  1. Dennis Del Favero
  2. 2006
  1. Two single channel DVD-Video. 8 minutes. BW. Stereo.
  2. Two channel DVD Installation. 8 minutes. BW. Stereo

Eclipse is a DVD Video project that investigates recent events involving the suspicious deaths of key scientific and financial figures, now on the borders of historical memory. It tracks the impossible dilemmas faced by its protagonists whose deaths created a judicial vortex in their wake.

The first death involves the apparent suicide of Roberto Calvi, “God’s Banker”, on 17 June 1982. Calvi, was Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano and banker for the Vatican. He was found dead under Blackfriar’s Bridge, London two days after it was revealed that his bank had laundered billions of dollars via death squads in South America, the Solidarity movement in Poland and various Italian political parties. Framed by a conversation recorded between Calvi and Manuela Kleinzig, it reconstructs the last 48 hours of Cavi’s life as Kleinzig convinces Calvi to fly with her to safe haven in London. Kleinzig, along with four others was recently acquitted of Calvi’s murder.

The second death involves the apparent suicide of David Kelly on the 17th July, 2003 and the subsequent Hutton Inquiry into his death. Kelly, one of the world’s pre-eminent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) scientists came to grief in his encounter with the UK’s Ministry of Defence when he publicly questioned the validity of the Government’s claim that Iraq could deploy WMD within 45 minutes. It reconstructs a phone conversation between Kelly and a journalist, days before his death, framed by the Hutton Inquiry’s psychiatric report on Kelly.

Exhibited at

  • ZKM Centre for Art and Media, 2009
  • Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, 2009

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Eclipse