In the synesthetic technological cave

In the presentation text for a previous exhibition (Colours and Sounds of Origins, 2013) I already had the opportunity to talk about the graphic simplifications of the images that animate Andrea Benetti’s “Neorupestri” canvases, highlighting how his works feature shapes and figures poised between an archaic past, which implodes into the expressiveness of primitive man, and a hyper-technological future. His stylised patterns of cars, aeroplanes and scooters are mixed with the silhouettes of horses, buffaloes and hominids, becoming symbols, heraldic models of a world seen through a synthesising lens in which the outline prevails, to circumscribe the different icons. Benetti, in fact, does not disdain the use, now very popular among artists, of stencils or masks, a quick and economical method of representing the communicative and expressive essence of images, thus lightening them of excessive realistic and descriptive burdens, as in the very contemporary visual language of computer graphics.

In the case of the series of eighteen Studio canvases on petroglyphs created for this exhibition, however, Benetti takes a further step backwards, regressing to the stylistic features of the monochrome and rough rock engraving adopted by the ancient Camuni, in order to readapt the expressive potential of the engraved mark and stroke in a contemporary key. The elimination of colour, so successfully used in many previous works, in favour of monochrome white also allows light to become colour, stimulating the engraved surfaces and giving the icons an aseptic and sometimes immaterial plasticity, so that they come to life thanks to the infinite luminous shades of white and grey, in a combinatory play of opaque and glossy, flat backgrounds and reliefs and projections. The atmosphere becomes mysterious and almost mystical in a sort of revisitation of the cave or grotto of Homo sapiens in an updated version, where the works on the walls, designed to interact with the environment, are combined with the impressive technological apparatus set up for the opening performance.

At the console tables, the figures and symbols traced by Benetti on a work surface and live video footage will be animated live in Basmati film’s INSTANT FILM project and projected onto the ceiling of the hall simultaneously with Frank Nemola’s live soundtrack, in an atmosphere reminiscent of a true synaesthetic technological cave. Nemola’s cold, pre-recorded electronic sound will alternate with fast-paced rhythmic breaks, the warm, ancestral sound of his trumpet and his vocals, while Basmati’s live animation will make the subjects of the engraved paintings seem to detach themselves from the walls, floating freely and dematerialised into luminous pixels on the ceiling. The audience will thus find themselves immersed in an integrated sound-video-performance environment, directly involved in the action which, through a short circuit between past and present, will merge “visual space” and “acoustic space” into a single entity, transforming the room into a truly dynamic and interactive dimension.

Prof. Silvia Grandi
Lecturer and Researcher in Phenomenology of Contemporary Art
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Department of Arts
University of Bologna