The exhibition "Imaginary: Aesthetic of the virtual and perception of reality," intends to compete with some important issues that concern the relationship between real and virtual, digital technologies, new media and various forms of artistic expression, through a selection of works made artists from different generation and background.

The project focuses on the idea of "transit" in which the classical concepts of place, identity, history and nature meet and collide with dimensions dictated by the idea of flow, concurrency, interactivity, and overall, both within "material" and "immaterial". Digital technology, in fact, promises real transformations in the field of perceptual, cognitive, communicative and aesthetic. Contemporary art, moreover, is often found to explore new territories, new "reality", in that dimension of the sublime that Kant placed at the center of his aesthetic reflection. In this selection of video art, interactive video in 2D and 3D, stereoscopic visions, virtual avatars and imaginary landscapes, the contemporary art plays on the displacement of the perception of reality, with a focus on interactive dynamics.

This is the case of the video by Hugo Arcier, one of the most renowned and interesting international video artists, he uses sophisticated 3D graphics and special effects for all his works. He has worked with directors like Roman Polanski, Alain Resnais, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, François Ozon. "Limbus, is an interactive game in a limbus, an unexplored area of our body, while "Nostalgia for Nature "(it has been exhibited in the most prestigious museums and festivals around the world and now is on national premiere in Italy, in this exhibition) is a real sensory experience, a film composed entirely of computer-generated imagery.It is a full immersion in a timeless dimension of a city and of a fictional nature, which reveals a hyper and sometimes disturbing world of Avatar and alien figures, but always fascinating.

Between virtuality and reality even 2D video by Michael Stephen, investigator of the American horror’s film, this with the latest masterpieces of "The approach" and "Trapped" in which the reality of the glossy Hollywood film turns into a reality sci-fi, where real and imaginary parts are exchanged.

Virtual alter-ego in the photograph by Nuno Benavente, who with "Insanity", the photographer is trying to convey a sense of uncertainty and inner struggle due to an increasingly demanding and competitive world, far from its natural roots.

World and sense or meaning sense of the world in video by Jenna Renee Maurice, American artist and performer, who uses her body fully immersed herself in the landscape. Her videos explores the idea of creating a relationship with the landscape by using aspects of the beginning human developmental stages as a starting point – including innate reactions, mimicry and non-verbal communication. This series of performances focuses on the complications of communication, which is used to visualize reality, the attempt of dialogue, the dissonance between form and content and the possibility for trial, success and dysfunction in understanding. By exploring the concept of landscape in a reactive way, she try to gain a new relationship with the land through empathetic mimicry as well as reactions to its unique attributes-citing moments of relational conflict, understanding, unity, resistance and tenderness.

The forest is the spatial location where the man lays his relationship with nature, visible in photo prints by Clara Arozarena and painting by Stefanie Kettel.

Imaginary and zoomorphic figures in the prints of Alain Nahum, and lost islands in the painting by Jani Jan, the pace of landscapes to explore, while the young Italian artist Claudia Asoli, focuses on the fossilized fragments of a kind, made with the technique of engraving, that immortalize "the breath" and the perfection of nature.

The exhibition also features the printmaking by Italian artist Marilena De Stefano, showing children suspended between the real and the virtual, between inside and outside.

Return in the show, Sofi Basseghi with the videos “The dance”, “ And where the lands she travels from ” and "Sealed Lips," (this video has premiered at the Palace of Exhibitions in Rome, during the event "On the Silk Road). Her video is inspired by the fairy tale of "The Thousand and One Nights ", and has an old and crippled Shahrezad of today's society that is lost in a maze of a textile factory, where every room tell the different and struggles histories that women face every day.

From digital and interactive image, to the virtuality in its algorithmic matrix in stereoscopic images by Italian artist Paolo Camiz, sculptor, musician and researcher of Quantum Mechanics (and ex former professor of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Rome), which proposes a series of images in the third 3D dimension, which regain their three-dimensionality with the visitor's gaze. These are "virtual sculptures", as the images were created entirely on the computer.

Closing the group show the paintings in the third dimension of the young Italian artist Oronzo De Stradis, which starts from a social imprinting, with an expressive style clearly place between the two pins of the real and the virtual.

Primo Piano LivinGallery
Viale G. Marconi, 4
Lecce 73100 Italy
Ph. +39 08 32304014
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Saturday 4.30pm - 8.30pm