Carlo Bernardini, Drawing of the vacuum, 2011, installazione in fibre ottiche, m H 5x 20x10. The Arc Show, Business Design Centre, London.
Carlo Bernardini, Drawing of the vacuum, 2011, optic fibers installation, m H 5x20x10. The Arc Show, Business Design Centre, London.
of light is therefore based on the perceptive mobility of light induced in the observer and the changes to the observation coordinates in the architectonic space. Visible and invisible, two dialectic terms? If it is true that the relativity of the physical and psychic sensations of what we see leaves room for the sensation of diversity between the appearance and reality, it can also be said that the visible is always positioned on one side or on the other side of the apparent. And consequently, the objects and their real structures definitively lose their independence.The hypothetical second visual and mental condition which guides the intuitive possibilities of perception should be searched for in the intrinsic structure of the space around the project – irrespective of whether this consists of an inert material or something that is moving. And it is in this second visual existence that we perceive the presence of what was supposed to be invisible. Observing the image, we are not aware of the elements of its make-up nor their specific identity, in that the effects of our imagination prevent us from preserving the primary sensations intact. Initially we have the clear primary sensations; at a later stage, the elements that we could not perceive at the outset, the so-called ‘obscure zones’, reappear in our memories and create the impression of something new and foreign, and we forget that they belonged to the previous sensations. The automatic analysis on the distinction between the objects as they appear and their real consistency leads to the formation of two different worlds – one of which real and the other illusionary. And between these two worlds there is the intermediate condition that may be different or ambiguous and can shift from one to the other. The relationship between the urban context and multimedia dimensions is currently part of an extremely lively area of research. What is your opinion regarding the potential and the creative suggestions of light in the contemporary city? In my opinion, the biggest transformation that contemporary art has experienced over the last 50-60 years is not so much a question of the new materials, new languages or expressive concepts but the loss of the perimeter of a painting and the volume of a sculpture. The works of art have spilled out to occupy the space and become part of it; the elude the physical dimension of the locations and change the target, thus scrambling the environmental space,
transforming it from container into project. This is my opinion of the urban context, one of the experimental areas in the current visual research programs. Sensitive surfaces, interaction with light, the mediation of shapes between two and three dimensions, the spatial qualities of sound, can shift the radius of linguistic perception onto non-material elements, imperceptible, untouchable presences which will become the stimuli of the mental procedures within interactive systems. The chemical changes of matter forms another separate experimental pathway for art. The multimedia dimension therefore determines the evolution of the language through the works of art which are transformed into audio-visual organisms and it leads the architectonic context into the so-called mental space or the thought tracks. Light makes it possible to reinterpret the urban space available to the public; can it be used as part of a more permanent feature in the requalification of the city? Light is a medium that exploits its apparent immaterial qualities to eliminate the physical dimension of the works beyond the boundaries and the perimeters, and transforms the space into the work of art itself. The large architectonic structures of the present and the past inevitably become permeable places for the languages of contemporary art. In Europe for example, it is normal practice to be faced with places which developed from creative, architectonic and visual logic of centuries past; the time leap between the techniques or the technologies belonging to the contemporary languages which are sometimes sophisticated, creates sharp contrast between the ambiences. And in my opinion, these sharp contrasts between the material and the location are often their strong points, the catalyst that adds the unpredictability factor to the visual phenomena of today’s expressive media; and when these are combined with the time leap I mentioned above, they can lead to truly surreal results. This is the visual concept I use to re-qualify many of the ‘dead’ areas – in architectonic terms – in the major cities. I like to create environmental installations that grab the space, they dominate it, they engulf it and drag it forcefully into the visionary dimension defined by the idea; so tackling a large architectonic construction can lead to emotions that are as exhilarating as dizziness, in other words, tackling something enormous that can be considered to be a challenge but is also something that can be completely eliminated.
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