NO ICE

"no ice shows, in the style of Jacques Tati, the poetry of everyday life. In a slightly disturbing way, it also makes us pause and consider how the public space is regulated and how certain automatisms no longer surprise us." Geert Van der Speeten in De Standaard, 2021.

In the video no ice, eight ice cream vans owned by the Brussels ice cream vendor Lanni Giovanni star in an absurd choreography. In true guerilla fashion, the vehicles circle around the statue of La Porteuse d'eau [The Water Carrier] on the Barrière de Saint-Gilles, a busy roundabout in heart of the Brussels municipality. Through their loudspeakers, they frenziedly advertise the start of summer and its accompanying delights.

In no ice, Simona Denicolai and Ivo Provoost let the form of the roundabout take precedence over its regular function. Through a seemingly harmless ballet of dashing vans, the artists take aim at the instrumentalization of public space and the growing impact of city marketing. The reverse-edited video keeps track of what is already in the past: the actual performance. Simultaneously, the carts are "wound up" like musical boxes to amplify their sound. No ice, then, but lots of noise.