Wodemeishu

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

TITLE: "LIGHT BUILDING"
YEAR: 2011 Mixed media installation - Light Box/Reportage

FORMAT: 80x120x140 cm

Video and sound in collaboration with SDNA and Alessandro Olla

The project "LIGHT BUILDING" draws inspiration from some questions on the cognitive and empathetic potential of the imagination. The need to observe society and its historical structure in an holistic manner, stimulates us to go beyond logic and beyond factual, empirical and mechanical knowledge. We feel the need for an imaginative element both visual and narrative, spontaneous and hence free of all constraints. It is the capacity of thinking oneself into the skin of another person, of becoming an intelligent user of history, of daily life and of others’ feelings.
So "light building" is a container of images to be “re-imagined”; an “inner vision” focused on oneself and others. Imagination has indeed extraordinary potential since it stimulates curiosity and the capacity of appreciating to the full the humanity of others, going beyond stereotypes and shallow fears.
At the same time, this work also seeks to highlight the impact of a certain kind of modernity on the imagination: the advance of virtual worlds seems to be reducing modern man’s capacity to imagine.
The choice was to represent this passage through the construction of a lit building ("LIGHT BUILDING"), in each window of which (about 500 per side) a negative “peers out”. The images are from photo projects in the United States, Latin America, Asia and Africa. The aim is to “open” the world in that building also through sound, which aims at recreating the atmosphere and state of mind of each place and each life story. That world is overlooked by a sky (screened video) so perfect as to be, in actual fact, a virtual sky. "LIGHT BUILDING" is a critical document portraying the building, the sky, human relationships, diversity in a situation of danger (see attachment A). On the one hand there is the risk they may become only “imaginable”, on the other the building proposes a strong image of peoples, communities and humanity potentially gifted with such richness as to be able to create the solid base for an awareness of themselves which would enable them to manage and manipulate virtual worlds too.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE EXHIBIT

This work has been created thanks to funding from the Fondazione Banco di Sardegna and will be presented at the Florence 2011 Biennale Exhibition.

Project: "LIGHT BUILDING" 2011
Mixed media installation - light Box/Reportage