A possessing eye. The above, the bigger and the higher, have been the ultimate momentum for humans since the dawn of time. If they rose from the sea as amphibians to escape the horrors of the minuscule wars of the deep, they were always looking up, fearing some greater and incomprehensible threads. Lightnings, suddenly dropping fire and deafening thunders, storms and flesh burning sun. Also on the ground what was bigger and therefore higher was invincible, as the mammoth or simply a taller warrior, was a harder foe. Because could easily hit you on the head, while it was not so easy to do the same. Higher mean dominance. On a higher ground to spot enemies from further away, to throw them rocks and arrows, also dominance of the eye and mind over the landscape, that from there was more easily mappable and possessed. God was in the sky and could see anyone and hit everybody. Men could only build higher towers and walls, to protect themselves from the dangers walking the ground. Then they started to explore and to put the results of their researches on paper, drawing them, and not surprisingly the resulting drawings where not from their point of view, but from a perpendicular point of view, as that of a bird, or a god, could be. To simplify, to possess the landscape it was necessary to restrain its vastness in one single glance, to be completely out of it to grasp it, as you can't focus the mountain lurking in one of its caves. Mapping became a tool to conquer, recording the enemy territory, to find paths for the troops and weaknesses into the defensive line. Military maps are still the more detailed ones, as any detail, any building, any stream can be used strategically and knowledge of the landscape can be crucial. Maps also became the proof of conquest, with the newly drawn borders documenting the acquired territory. But they also became a momentum for exploration and the nations started to explore further and further, as the first to map, to “discover” a land was its owner, no matter what the natives had to say about it. Then men could place themselves in the eye of God, they reached the atmosphere and then the moon, there was a run to be the first up there, as that was the new frontier, the new reachable height from which dominate a yet tinier landscape. Now it is at the reach of anybody, we look at our cities from above through our computer or our smartphone and yet we never know exactly where we are.
“Hollywood Sky” was an installation I made after not so much time that I was in Los Angeles. I wanted to investigate and tell about that city within that is Hollywood and that from my wandering seemed so far from the red carpet images you get on TV. As many things you have always been told but that you really see for the first time yourself, was hard to grasp, wasn't fitting the previous idea. So I needed to go back again, far from it, above it, to possess it and understand it. Not to get lost in its dirty bars and alleys or distracted by Darth Vader and Spongebob in front of the Chinese Theater, I needed a look from above and Hollywood's map, so banal, so similar to any other Los Angeles maps was perfect for this. Then I putted a projection with the Hollywood sign, cinema and one of its symbols, but also an electric sky and the gloom of the theatre. An half light that would project your feet's shadow stomping right on the city with a crunchy sound. That of the sugar the city was made of, scattered all around. Sugar so sweet that rots your teeth, sugar so fragile that the first rain will wash away.
“Milan” was a juxtapose. An old city layered underground as well as all around. You can read its age like in a tree, counting the circles that spread from the centre, to the medieval walls, to the modern roundabout until the contemporary border of the highway. Milan is a layered city also in its personality, the facades of the buildings hide secret gardens, the greyness of the sky contrasts with warm interiors and hidden meeting places. Milan is tough to beat, golden medal to the value against the fascists, conquered many times in history but never defeated. Still proud of having sent home the Austrians, literally kicking their ass. Though town but light enough to float upon one of the most fertile and richest in water regions of the world, risen from a swamp, of which the abundant fog is a memory and a cloak the city loves to hide in.
“Black City” is a fictional city, as well as it is any city. Is a city without landscape, a city which is its own only possible landscape. A city with no nature but made only by the human will, forgetful of any nature, any landscape. So I made nature happen, storms and destruction falling on the city, turning the sky black, like in a catastrophic movie, like in our darkest fears, like sometimes it happens, like in Fukushima. The city is harmless, galaxies and aliens draw unknown circles in the sky, there is nothing to do but succumb. No B-movie hero is there to rescue civilization, no happy ending plot or merciful god will suddenly happen. Only thrash and so let it be beautiful thrash. |
