Aphàiresis (from the Greek αφαίρεσις, abstraction) is an audiovisual work composed between 2017 and 2019, whose aim is to investigate the relationship between materiality and immateriality, between presence and metaphysics.
Published by
Mille Plateaux Edition
Category
Audiovisual
Specifics
1ch video and 2ch sound | 43’00”
Years of creation
2017 -2019
It is from the fruitful relationship between materiality – imperfection – and immateriality – perfection – that, through a filtration and regeneration process, a different and new world is created in which the single elements lose a part of themselves on their way to reorganize themselves in a higher order. Starting from static, interferences, distortions of obsolete projection and visual equipment – such as, VHS and analogue projectors – in old film shots, the composer makes the visual element dialogue with the sound, mainly drawn from data bending processes, revealing something about the nature of the digital medium, which would otherwise be opaque. On the other hand, by using artefacts from analogue projectors, he shows the transmission specificity of this visual reproduction device, revealing the presence of an inherent historical contrast.
The intuition of using the invisible substrate that makes up what appears to us as a compositional material reveals the will to examine the technological element beyond its normal functions. Here is the background turning into the subject, and opening up new perspectives of artistic research. However, Aphàiresis, and the related will to re-functionalize the error, stems from a much broader discussion: imperfection as a possible origin of art. Art develops from the idea that, the very moment it should break, an object such as a goblet would lose its function and, consequently, would be catapulted into a dimension of negation of the world of functions, returning a thought action that cuts the everyday life, making the artist glimpse the delicacy and fragility of the surrounding world. Therefore, Aphàiresis becomes the process through which the different codes, visual and musical, re-functionalize each other, giving value to the error and the resulting power to trigger an artistic and reflective reaction.