leaves_of_grass
2020
interactive a/v installation
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?…. I do not know what it is any more than he.
Walt Whitman
concept
Leaves_of_grass digitally reworks the concept of ‘residue’ at the basis of the theoretic reflection on the evolution of the urban and rural environment, herald of no less significant political implications, expressed by the French writer and landscaper Gillès Clemènt in his book Manifeste du Tiers Paysage [2005]:
“Si l’on cesse de regarder le paysage comme l’objet d’une industrie on découvre subitement […] une quantité d’espaces indécis, dépourvus de fonction sur lesquels il est difficile de porter un nom. Cet ensemble n’appartient ni au territoire de l’ombre ni à celui de la lumière. Il se situe aux marges. En lisière des bois, le long des routes et des rivières, dans les recoins oubliés de la culture, là où les machines ne passent pas. Il couvre des surfaces de dimensions modestes, dispersées comme les angles perdus d’un champ […].”
These residual spaces become receptacle and refuge of biodiversity, because of the fact that humans don’t practice any intervention in it, contributing to the ‘planetary mix’ of the living beings – the very expression of life – an essential component of evolution. Leaves_of_grass lives in absence: through a peculiar interaction, triggered by the absence of the user, the sounds and the creatures of a residual nightscape of numerical consistency, are animated. This process stops and regresses in the instant in which the absence is replaced by presence of the viewer. The digital generative organism, a simulacrum of the plant organism, retracts in the presence of humans and vice versa, conceptually highlighting the regenerating potential of the practice of non-intervention and abandonment, indicated as tools of paradigmatic breakage.
software
Maxon Cinema4D; Derivative Touchdesigner; Arduino Ide.
hardware
pc / laptop; video projectors; external video card; speakers; arduino board; motion sensors.
exhibitions
2021
leaves_ of_grass was presented at Tist – This is so temporary in Rastignano-Bologna [IT] from October 1st-20th 2021 for Quatrième Paysage’ first solo exhibition Elsewhere Here part 1 curated by Tist Situations and Adiacenze
curatorial text by Yulia Tikhomirova
press
Tist – This is so temporary ; Adiacenze
reviews
Juliet Art Magazine ; Exibart
2021
leaves_ of_grass was presented at the Volvo Studio Milano in Milan from September 9th-11th 2021 by Lucrezia Negrini [as Quatrième Paysage] for the exhibition Avant Young/Safety 2021 curated by Lightbox Publishing and Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia.
doc
Volvo Car
press
Exibart ; Artribune ; Lightbox Publishing ; Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia
2020
leaves_ of_grass was presented at the Bastione Sangallo of Fano from September 12th-13th 2020 for Casamatta/Discontinuità collective exhibition, a project curated by Collettivo Re-public, Bastione Sangallo, Rembò, Comune di Fano – Assessorato alla Cultura e Beni Culturali.