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SHOW TITLE: Cinzia Campolese
ARTIST: Cinzia Campolese
CURATOR: Murray Horne

US Premiere
Cinzia Campolese (Montreal based artist)

This exhibition represents a collection of new creations developed in recent years by Cinzia Campolese that revolve around the concepts of presence and perception of space in both digital and physical environments.

Cinzia Campolese is an Italian-born, Montreal-based artist. Her practice includes installations, sculptures, videos, and prints. Her recent work received awards internationally and she has participated in exhibitions and cultural events in Canada, Europe and Asia.

This exhibition at Wood Street Galleries is her first show in the United States.

The exhibition features six different compositions, interactions and perceptual experiments that use light, video, perspective illusions and tracking.

Amongst the six works presented, there is Error, an interactive installation using the rules of color subtraction. The work is composed of a round red filter and a projected blue and red gradient that reacts to the position of the person who is passing by and/or approaching. Another new work, In between, you, is a mixed media installation that is subtle but full of complexity in its optical illusions, composed of two similar rectangular elements installed on opposite sides of a room. When in between the two of them we can see a real mirrored reflection of ourselves and our hidden digital image on the screen behind that is invisible to the naked eye.

And occupying the whole top floor of the gallery, is the kinetic installation Equilibrium, composed of two motorized pendulums swaying a laser level, an object that represents an emblem of control over the construction of a space.

Through a variety of media, such as interactive installation, generative compositions, motorization and prints, the exhibition plunges the visitor in an analysis of their point of view. The exhibition works offer viewers to experience new associations and ideas with an aim to encourage critical parallel thinking on topics as diverse as time, identity, and control in our networked culture.

This exhibition received the support of the CALQ (Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec).

Exhibition Works-Descriptions

Error is an interactive installation that deprives the visitors of the importance of their presence in relation to the work.

The piece is created following the rules of color subtraction, it is composed of a rounded red filter and a projected blue and red gradient that reacts to the position of the person who is passing by and/or approaching.

When looking through the red filter only the red light is seen and when someone moves closer to it, the light will gradually change to blue, making the overall composition invisible to the naked eye.

This work reevaluates the rules of interactivity, both in our digital networks and in the culture of new media installations. It plays critically with the concept of reward-driven systems, aiming for once to introduce a negative reaction to engagement by the disappearance of part of the graphic content: a reaction of invisibility stemming from the onlooker engagement. Once the interaction is understood, there’s no reward to it but just a blank canvas.

In between, you

The development of attention as a currency has extremely characterized every aspect of our social and cultural interaction with the digital world. In between, you examines the impact of connected devices and the liminal state of surveillance present in our networked culture. It consists of two similar rectangular elements installed on opposite sides of a room, one is a modified LCD screen and on the other side, its reflective copy.

When we’re in between the two of them we can see the real mirrored reflection of ourselves and our hidden digital image on the screen behind; but the full visibility of our virtual image becomes almost unattainable because it’s obliterated by our presence.

The installation wants to destabilize the concept of the presence of our digital and physical world by relating an everyday device, a screen, and one of the more direct forms of projection of reality, a mirror.

By doing so, this relation questions the real nature of what we see and perceive and the inexistent control we have upon our digital existence.

Frame of reference (Triptych)

Frame of Reference is a piece that creates a direct connection to a space - time relativity concept. Time does not progress at the same rate for everyone, everywhere, and the rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference, as it is for the position of the visitor engaging with the piece.

A set of three mirrors are set side by side, with evolving projected light appearing on both sides of the mirrors. The two sides of each canvas are similar, but they evolve very slowly with subtle differences on either side. The entire visualization of the piece is unique for each visitor and linked to their position in space.

Each canvas offers a different visual representation of time, based on the three principles of geometric transformation: scale, translation, and rotation, recreating three different visual compositions that constantly evolve.

Binary clash

Sculpture, Binary clash, is part of a series of works that have the same name and that propose an interpretation of the dichotomous thinking that leads us to unconsciously define many everyday choices in a binary way. It is composed of a modified LCD screen, a steel structure and polarized glass.

The polarized glass, that in common lcd screens allows to show the visual content, is in the sculpture recreating an inverted visual result of the same element. A spatial representation that creates a cohabitation of two possible outcomes.

Reloading The Real

Reloading The Real takes as its starting point the psychology of waiting by appropriating the common Internet vernacular of the loading state.

These are the symbols that we find when we refresh our feeds, open an image, or load a new website. The work is composed of a series of lenticular prints, that picture commonplace loading graphics found on the Internet.

The lenticular sheet animates the loading signs as viewers move parallel to the prints. The work plays with the omnipresence of these digital signs, by translating them into a tangible medium, that allows them to be read through the movements of the viewer.

Equilibrium

In kinetic installation, Equilibrium, the focus is a tool: the laser level, an object that represents an emblem of control over the construction of a space. This tool is deprived of its functional nature by the acquisition of movement through motorization. The kinetic sculptures react and interact with their surroundings, amplifying this cartesian gesture dictated by the laser, and constantly trying to link it to the organic movement of the public. This movement is intended to bring the viewer closer to a concept of an evolving balance, which is associated with our presence and actions in space.