nightswimming: giovanna silva on discotheques, light, and nightlife

The following text is reproduced from NIGHTSWIMMING: Discotheques from the 1960s to the Present, a book by photographer Giovanna Silva, and shared with designboom courtesy of the author. 

NIGHTSWIMMING – Giovanna Silva

I started photographing discotheques when Monditalia commissioned a project from me on the architecture of Italian nightlife for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. I must admit this was a completely unknown subject to me, which I am just beginning to get familiar with now, when the exhibition in Venice has closed and our project has become a book. My unfamiliarity with the topic surely gave me an unconventional and detached eye, but required an extra effort and the restraint of all my compulsiveness.

We started by collecting the books already published on the subject: on the one hand, we needed to gather all the possible information, on the other, discotheques are buildings that change their appearance rather frequently – having to adjust to fashion, to the music, and to the progress in lighting and sound technology – therefore books were the main way of seeing images of most of the discotheques we were finding out about. These books brought actual people into the project: critics, architects, DJs, art directors, club owners… the night swimmers. 

After examining Italy, we realized it was important to analyze the state of the art in four big European cities: Berlin, London, Paris and Barcelona. Choosing the locations in each of these cities has not been an easy task. The research we presented at the Biennale had to be exhaustive, but here we had to be selective. We aimed at listing the clubs that are (or sometimes were) both socially and musically important, and at the same time architectonically interesting. I photographed those discotheques that today outline a specific perception of the night: increasingly, every day, places not designed to be discos are occupied and transformed into party locations, a sort of legalization of the 1990s concept of the rave. The photographs depict these places sometimes empty and sometimes full, pointing out – among other things – how the people erase the very concept of space. 

When entering a club, the first thing to hit me was always the smell, maybe because I photographed the majority of these places out of hours, during the day. It is some sort of madeleine, everywhere a constant. I am still trying to figure out whether it is the smell of the cleaning or if this is simply the smell of the night, a mixture of human beings, smoke and detergent. The second thing you immerse yourself in are the lights. Lights are everything.

We have been told discotheques are like old ladies: they shouldn’t be seen without their make-up. And I completely agree with this, light does an important part of the trick here, it changes the space at the touch of a switch. Some of the photos have been shot with white light, a light that makes everything look flat and clinical. It is funny how something that began in such a detached way has become more and more familiar every day. For this I would like to thank all those who had the patience to explain to me what the night is.

Giovanna Silva (b. 1980) lives and works in Milan. Between 2005 and 2007 she was a regular contributor to the magazine Domus, and from 2007 to 2011, served as photo editor of the magazine Abitare. Her books include Days without Number, Napoli*, Black Coffee No Sugar. Genova, Milan. City, I listen to your heart, Islamabad Today, Imeldific, Tehran, 17 April 1975: a Cambodian Journey, Afghanistan: 0 Rh-, Syria: A Travel Guide to Disappearance, Foxtrot Gate – Cyprus, Libya: Inch by Inch, House by House, Alley by Alley, Baghdad: Red Zone, Green Zone, Babylon (Mousse Publishing); Saudiscapes, Never walk on crowded street – Rome (Nero Editions);UN, CH (bruno); Niemeyer4ever, Palmyrah (Art Paper Editions); Walk like an Egyptian, Good Boy 0372, Motto Books and Mr. Bawa, I Presume (Hatje Cantz). In 2014, she participated in the Venice Architectural Biennale with the project Nightswimming, Discotheques in Italy from the 1960s until now. She has participated in exhibitions at MACRO in Rome, Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa in Venice, at the Triennale, Milan and at the American Academy, Rome. She is the founder of Humboldt Books and San Rocco Magazine. She teaches at NABA Milan and ISIA Urbino.

The post nightswimming: giovanna silva on discotheques, light, and nightlife appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.