My work incorporates art, technology and space; it is grounded in experimentation
with photography and digital art. I create artworks to be in constant
interaction with the public. They are conceived like maps: a heterogeneous
constitution in permanent fusion, conceptually and technologically, waiting
to be revealed by the public.
Through my own practice as an artist, I grant importance to both conceptual
and visual research for each project. My work is characterized by constant
evolution and the methodology of research.
I attribute much importance to the perception and the expression of my
artwork inside - the physical - space, not only concerning the surface
or the media used - as support, but also all over the space where it
is exhibited. I like to involve the public into each one of my pieces,
creating a “fusional relation”, like an event, where the before, during
and after, are very important steps of my creative process.
My ongoing research about the image and its origin, started in 2006 in
New Zealand. There, I developed a multimedia & photography project
called in transit.
An architectural and urban research that questioned different centers
of interest, which however are all conveyed to the same point: the accessibility
to new forms of art. This research/work defined questions of landscape,
territory and non-place, meaning a concept and/or mental attitude more
than an immediate perception, or recognition of the inhabitable thing.
In 2007, I continued this research with an on-site piece called Sydneyfade,
created during my artist residency program at the Sydney Olympic Park.
Sydneyfade (Sydney for a digital ensemble) is a photographic
installation that seeks to reveal the digital composition of the image,
the construction and density of pixels. My interest was to present an
active association between the viewer and the image. I am also interested
in the relationship between what is visible and invisible information
that the naked human eye can recognize and decipher. With the aid of
digital devices, gaining physical proximity and/or squinting the eyes,
the image becomes increasingly easier to comprehend.
These past experiences have accentuated my interest for digital art & technology,
and also have enhanced a questioning of the cities and the public space. Cross Urban is
an ongoing collaboration since 2008 with New York-based Colombian artist
Cynthia Lawson. We take turns each week, picking a word from a dictionary
to which we each respond with a photograph. The works we are producing,
are groups of two images plus the word itself and its definition. We
share an interest in time, space, and cities, and through this collaboration
we have been able to expand the “language” and “meaning” of each of our
photographs.
This process of intensive work begins with the selection of a word, continues
with me taking a photograph, but does not end until I see both of our
images next to the word, and extend this visual conversation with Cynthia
into a verbal one. After 50 groupings we have started to identify the
commonalities and differences in our photographic vocabulary and become
particularly excited when our images, although taken independently and
often in cities thousands of miles apart, are eerily similar.
Cartographical Minds is a series treating the manifold
notion of the imaginary space in the modern world, including the idea
of what exists or should exist in a given space, whether private, real
or imaginary. These images are made to be decoded by the viewer as a
map-reader. For the reader not to be distracted by anything which stands
in the way of understanding, each map has been encoded using easily understandable
signs, symbols, lettering, and lines.
This photography-based project mutates into an array of lines and stories
into the imaginary world. After a short discussion with the person I
photograph, I seek to recapture memory or significant elements of each
person's past events that might define the person’s mind. Image and space
evolve alongside each other. In consequence, I attribute a part of my
imaginary world to each of the images, letting them be part of my own
story.
The maps capture both the image and the space of an imaginary location
that only exists in a common mind. I tried to explore a variety of possibilities
on how to present and represent their minds through an image. For that
reason, I used a reality-based medium, photography, and an imagination-based
medium, the digital drawing.
My creative process is nothing predefined; it’s an evolutionary research
of questioning where the interaction with others is a major step in the
development. If I attempted to describe it with a few words, I would
use this Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may
remember; involve me and I'll understand.”