Generous Images Unable to Reach
Installation view, Lottozero textile laboratories, Prato, 2018
Photo: Luca Vanello
10.11. —
21.12.2018
Generous Images Unable to Reach is a project developed by Luca Vanello over the course of several residency periods at Lottozero textile laboratories between 2017 and 2018.
The project investigates the relationship between human beings and non-human entities during the process of bereavement, in the phase of processing or accepting pain: it is in this emotional turmoil that materials acquire a particular relevance and meaning. The research ranges from a more intimate phenomenon of anthropomorphism, which triggers instinctive and impulsive emotional processes that tend to humanize inanimate elements in the attempt to overcome loss, to the impact of the latest digital technologies in today’s innumerable attempts to achieve immortality.
MATERIALITY
The materials present in the space are the result of various manipulations of the temporal line of the collected objects: acceleration, inversion and suspension of the life cycle become sculptural processes that reflect the inexorable attempt of humankind to control time, and its inevitable failure.
Plastic components from exteroceptive sensors used in humanoid robotics have been melted with heat and reverted from their recognizable and functional form back to a prior state; a deceased person’s clothing (preserved by their partner) has been regenerated into textile fibres that are then crystallized in wellness salts; several plants have been deprived of chlorophyll by being processed with acid in order to pause the accumulated energy in their lifecycle.
Generous Images Unable To Reach
Materially reversed plastic components from exteroceptive sensors used in humanoid robotics, 2018. Detail
Photo: Luca Vanello
Generous Images Unable To Reach
Plants processed by removing chlorophyll, a deceased person’s clothing regenerated into textile fibres and later crystallized in wellness salts, silicon cast of the person’s clothing items before regeneration, materially reversed polyester clothing, materially reversed plastic components from exteroceptive sensors used in humanoid robotics, 2018
Photo: Luca Vanello
Intimate narratives and material cycles
The intervention, in the form of a site-specific installation activated by an unexpected and unannounced performative action, is configured as an ecosystem that has been exploded into its component materials. It escapes the anthropocentric vision by restoring, as fragments, the evidence of a microscopic look at vulnerability and the precariousness of existence.
Photos: Luca Vanello, Marina Arienzale
In collaboration with
Supported financially by
The exhibition premiered in October 2018 during NESXT Festival in Turin. In March 2019 it has been part of the MUSEION Casa Atelier program, in Bolzano.