As long as questioning people about what you might think is real, my pictures with street sign represent a metaphor. Seeing life as a journey, metaphorically the street, future is the part we still have to go. As humans we do not know the future, we try to imagine it but we have no clue, no direction in our path. Fernando Pessoa in the book in Livro do Desassossego says “life is an experimental journey that we make involuntarily. It is a journey of mind through matter.” Pessoa assumes life is a voyage which our mind does through our existence.
Kierkegaard, pioneer of existentialism, said to be subject to illusion is to be in a benighted state, and when one recognizes illusion for what it is one hates it, and loves the light. Seeing the truth is seeing the light which illuminates one’s own personal path. Jean-Paul Satre in Nauseanarrates about the life of Roquentin and his philosophical view of life. He says he feels nothing is real, as he is surrounded by cardboard scenery and anything can happen. Reality starts to lose its familiar outlines and everything seems illusion. In this scenery Roquentin says there is no reason of living and what we experience is eventual.
Gino de Dominicisis obsessed with immortality and invisibility, absence and presence. He says to truly exist things have to be immortal, so everything does not exist. His behaviour of radical svalutation of sensitive experiences and the idea that nothing exist in this temporal dimension are the foundations of de Dominicis philosophical conceptions. Materializing the absence and making visible the invisible is what founds the hossimoros Ossimori fisici, opere invisibili, ubique. He always refers the spectator to a continuous overthrow of sense and perspectives. I tried to make the viewer going through the limits of reality. Dominici represents a pivot of my research, in particular the work Seconda soluzione di immortalità (l'universo è immobile)which he shows in 1972 at the Biennale of Venice. Paolo Rosa, a guy affected by down syndrome, is in a corner of the room in front of three sculptures of the artist: a ball, a rock and a invisible cube. Paolo Rosa has no memories neither a perception of future so he is immortal and a paradox. The viewer is invited to gain his point of view and see the objects in front of him as existing things. This is the only way objects can become real, and you can achieve to perceive them as artefacts of nature without their real function.
Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida talks about the aim of photography, to represent reality without any style, naturalizing what in fact are invented and high structured meanings. This consideration made me develop a strong sensitivity for the power of photography, which successes in making simple any difficult prospect. Erwin Blumenfeld’s ideas inspired me and always pushes me to go through the boundaries of photography, as he rejected the formal limitations of photography. Before becoming a fashion photographer he experimented with collages and multi expositions creating images which do not seem real. He participated in the Dada Movement and what I like is its connotation with of absurd. I play with analogical photography and I started using it because I wanted to break all the limit of this old photographic technique, making the photos look unreal and absurd. Another artist who interest me is John Baldessari. Much of his work involves pointing, in which he tells the viewer not only what to look at but how to make selections and comparisons. With the red points the person immediately looks at the traffic lights and seeing them red starts to think about the absurdity of the photo. He uses other way of manipulating images exploring the narrative functions of photographies.
Olafur Eliasson believes art has a strong impact outside the museum: he argues art can arouse a strong sensitivity in people. Part of his research is concentrated into the relationship between the environment and human beings. I believe he detected a very important function of art and its aim of making people reflect about historical issues.
I recently had the opportunity to travel across Asia and I shot a video in Thailand. I choose the theme of plastic pollution as I noticed people do not care about contaminating their surroundings. I was interest in showing the hypocrisy of consumerism while exploiting their environment without thinking about the environmental consequences. The work of the British photographer Mandy Barker Hong Kong Soup 1826 represents visually stunning works on the impact of oceanic waste. She gathered tons of plastic from beaches in Hong Kong to create photos. She constitute an inspiration for me as she makes beautiful compositions while showing the problem of plastic pollution.
Vivian Maier, as long as her street photographies, which are very interesting in their attempt to show social perspectives and differences, takes many self portraits when reflecting her image in mirrored superficies. In her self portraits she seems detached and not really participating into life, as a passive viewer of existence.
Taking self portraits I started reflecting upon the role of the self in our culture. We live in the culture of individualism by any doubt, where the desires and goals of an individual come before the needs of the collectivity. In this context the importance of the individual becomes superior and each of us concentrates on themself. The images which reflect best this phenomenon are selfies, which I decided to print on mirror, where people could see themselves and their image. I called this work “Self trap” and I showed it at the Crypt Gallery. This experience made me understand that if you only think about yourself you will ignore other people. I think this is a pig problem nowadays, as the cult of the self has become very important and we are loosing the sense of collectivity. I produced another mirror with a human shape and I sandblast the rest of it. The viewer can see himself in the mirror but not seeing their surrounding and the people around him.
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