The intention of Paltrinieri’s research is to investigate space through objective data that allow us to describe how it is used. The aim is to save what has been, to deconstruct a memory that is the bearer of a stratification of memories, revealing it with no nostalgia.
Over the last few years, the artist has entrusted the recording of space to technology: the work presented in the exhibition, in fact, was born in a moment of research involving the use of motors, Arduino hardware and presence sensors.
The theme of the site-specific installation 12V (x8) is the time of exhaustion of an energy source directly proportional to the unpredictable attendance of visitors to the exhibition. Eight common car batteries are the mutant subject of the site-specific work. A charged battery has an electrical voltage of 12V. The motion sensors, located outside spazioSERRA on each of its eight sides, detect the passage of the public that relates with the work and becomes unwittingly (or consciously) responsible for the activation of the batteries. The digital LED displays placed against the windows of the space keep track of the process that leads each battery to discharge, up to their eventual complete exhaustion.
„The work lives and is consumed in complicity with the observer’s gaze. When it is alone it is silent, when it has an audience it reacts, but always in a different way.“ Giuliana Benassi writes in the critical text accompanying the work, with which she initiates an attempt at dialogue with her mutability, inviting the public to complete the writing of the text which is also changeable, since „the numerical display, the electric potential difference of each battery, the gaze of the person who enters into a relationship with it (the work) produce different images each time”.
The viewer is solely responsible for the mutation, without him the work has no life. He can stop for a long time and observe 12V (x8) in all its details, he can take all the time he wants to understand the work, to capture a memory, to take a photograph. In the meantime, with his presence he will drain the batteries, consume the exhibition, leaving the next visitor an ever-changing scenario. The final electrical voltage of the batteries will be the narration of the communication taking place between the exhibition and the spectator, between inside and outside.
Alice Paltrinieri (Rome, 1987) Graduated in Scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, she worked for a short period in cinema and worked alongside some international artists for many years. She exhibits in museums, galleries and participates in various residences. In 2017 she won the Setup award as the best under 35 artist. She has been represented by Galleria Ramo for a year. Paltrinieri investigates the space by creating interactions between the work and the public, using technology to collect the data with all its stratifications.
spazioSERRA is part of Artepassante project, a program for the regeneration of metropolitan spaces lead by Le Belle Arti Association in collaboration with RFI and with the patronage of the Municipality of Milan and the Lombardy Region. SERRA is a non-profit exhibition space that was created with the aim of enhancing the Milan area through the work of emerging artists, in a place, the suburban one, not dedicated to art, where art becomes an accident. The realization of the exhibition has been possible thanks to: Gianfrancesco Aurecchia, management and implementation of the website; Silvia Biondo, press office and public relations; Virginia Dal Magro, administration and venue management; Angelo Di Matteo, layout design and technical support; Massimiliano Fantò and Giacomo Lambrugo, social and communication strategy; Nicolas North, management and maintenance of digital services; Cristiano Rizzo, photography; Valentina Toccaceli, graphic design.
Interview about spazioSERRA on Les Nouveaux Riches
Giuliana Benassi (Forlì, 1984) She lives and works in Rome. Independent curator and art historian, she graduated in Art History from the University of Pisa. She places the relationship between a work of art and an exhibition space at the center of her research, with particular attention to the concept of site-specific. The investigation into the genesis of the work of art in non-conventional exhibition spaces is the basis of a curatorial and theoretical approach that favors a reflection on the complex dynamics that link the work, the space and the public to each other.
*Thanks to Giulio Panimolle for the technical support.
Exhibition: Alice Paltrinieri. 12V (x8) curated by spazioSERRA
Exhibition duration: 6.05.2021 at 6.00 pm to 3.06.2021
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