Francesca Pasini – If my name is the same as yours …
It's not often you come face to face with your namesake, but when it happens it's quite alarming because the first name plus surname combination, which normally defines uniqueness, suddenly becomes a sign of multiple identity. Aided and abetted by a search engine, Cristiano Berti came across his namesake in Dario Argento's film "Tenebre" (1982). As usual the plot was really bloody and played on the ambivalence of the roles of executioner-victim, a kind of dog-chasing-tail story in which a character - Cristiano Berti, played by John Steiner - switches back and forth from serial killer to victim.
Cristiano Berti made it his objective to meet people who were total strangers, even though they shared the same name. He asked them if they were willing to let him take a portrait photo. Six of them accepted. And so he entered their homes, another essential element when building up an image of identity, he came to know their dates of birth and something about their lives. John Steiner gave up acting in 1991, his life took a completely new turn and he broke all ties with the cinema. Today he lives in Los Angeles but in the end Cristiano Berti managed to speak with Cristiano Berti / John Steiner and organise a portrait session. The circle reopened, a circle enclosing the subjective identity of actor and character, which for Steiner was entirely true, but also for all the other Cristiano Bertis, who played the part of nothing more than themselves.
They all assumed a pose, standing, although each of them did it in their own way: some with arms crossed, others with a hand in the pocket or leaning on furniture … The setting was their own home, a few elements form a bond between them although not explicitly, and even the link to the film is only expressed by the light and camera angle. A fireplace - very Italian - was the backdrop for John Steiner and his face interweaves these Cristiano Bertis with the situation in the film, in which the character he played was a literary critic. And so he introduces a fictitious identity amongst an assortment of real live people.
The result is a gallery of portrait photographs entitled Cristiano Berti in which the disconcertment and embarrassment of this dialogue between namesakes is quite evident. The only one of them not present is the artist himself, his identity as Cristiano Berti is only expressed in writing by his first name and surname. A strategy of being absent that links the reality portrayed to an interchangeable situation - by its very nature being a namesake is based on a graphè, while recognisable in terms of pronunciation it gets lost in the image. Face, build, age, these bodily traits betray the namesakes, the first sign that each of them is different.
A study that captures the obsession of individualism and also its flimsiness: even a telephone directory can reveal we're not the only ones to be named as we are. A factor that could well appear to be a mere coincidence but that begs a crucial question. At what point and how does my identity differentiate me? Up to what point do the lives of others, strangers to me, intervene? And does the fact we are named the same mean anything?
And so now this raises yet another issue related to this painstaking quest to seek out his namesakes. Affinity with or dissimilarity to the others comes into play, and in fact Cristiano Berti portrays his namesakes in an "aseptic" manner, in the sense that he doesn't take over their identity. He looks at them, he has them pose so that they too look at him, he has them photographed by others, he attends but he leaves a void. A void revealed by the uncertain expressions, the lack of "professionalism" in playing the role of a person whose photos will be shown in public - all of them knew their photos would be exhibited in a gallery.
And yet he crossed that void between himself and each other Cristiano Berti by taking the initiative when he telephoned, explaining a very important part of himself, like that of creating an image. However he doesn't report an encounter that has taken place but instead captures a fluid, fading moment that is always there an instant before things take place. The most important phase would appear to have been the search, imagining these namesakes, evoking others himself. Others who despite everything defend the secret of anonymity.
Only Cristiano Berti / John Steiner shows an ability to hold the pose while fixing the camera: his is a "conscious" portrait, but then he's also the only one with a different name. A very interesting difference, one highlighted by the camera and that brings the aspect of changing roles back into play.
There's a line in a scene from the film - "Cristiano Berti lives three blocks from here". In the scene created by the artist the decision to maintain a void between himself and his namesakes makes this sentence a symbolic condition of existence. There's always a "namesake" living three blocks from us, even if it's someone who doesn't bear our name, even if it's someone who doesn't speak our language, even if it's someone we don't like, even if it's someone we'll never meet....
Perhaps when he heard himself called by first name and surname in a film, Cristiano Berti found yet another reason to have a direct, unmediated encounter (with no introductions beforehand) with someone other than himself, but with whom he had something in common. And in fact it's this "something in common" that constitutes the process of defining single identity, which in turn isn't fixed and that often involves changing roles.
The title of Dario Argento's film is another significant coincidence. There's always an obscure area between ourselves and another, one that can assume dramatic proportions as in the film "Tenebre" or, as Cristiano Berti suggests, can maintain a kind of void.
The fact that his name appeared in a Dario Argento film was a mere coincidence, however the way Cristiano Berti has distanced himself from situations in the film is certainly not. He does no more than hint at the ambiguity and undefined nature of changing roles: in the film it's between victim and executioner, in the portrait gallery it's between himself and another. But there's another exchange too - between a genre film and an artistic study. In fact Cristiano Berti doesn't hide the source of his idea, he doesn't present it as the fruit of his curiosity but as a dialogue with the person who revealed to him the existence of a namesake. When does an idea form? Who suggests it first? Anonymous individuals and namesakes highlight that "void" each of us must form inside ourselves to create ideas, feelings and visions.
© Francesca Pasini, 2003
from: Cristiano Berti, exhibition catalogue, Carbone.to, Turin, 2003
