Room Tone

Relational Dynamics and the Hierarchies of Role

What does filmmaking generate beyond stories told through images and sound? What if the footage captured is secondary to that which comes into being among people in the process of making? Within the conceptual space of these questions, Rosa Aiello has brought together filmmakers Helin Gelik, Beatrice Gibson, and Ivana Mladenovic to respond in this new issue in the KONTEXT series. An essay by Yaniya Lee engages with Aiello’s film works and her ongoing exploration of methodology and collaborative praxis. When films are made not about something, but according to a set of conditions of production, both real and constructed, the so-called silence recorded on set – “room tone” – becomes a condition for collective work, a practice of listening.

The artist and filmmaker Rosa Aiello (b. 1987, Canadian-Italian) takes an experimental approach to her interest in structures; both social constructs, like the family, and the actual built world, like architecture and city infrastructure. Her works have been shown at numerous international venues, including Fridericianum, Centre Pompidou, Kunsthalle Zürich, Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, ICA London, Anorak e.V, Kevin Space, Cittipunkt, and SculptureCenter.