Page 13 - PRESSIONE SIMPATICA ON PAPER

The appearance of the device, a symbol of behavioral cri- Heidegger’s Dasein, authentic and in constant planning
ticism, reduces its tension to usefulness and functionali- approach. In a Silent Hill-like atmosphere, or as if in a
ty. In Vettorello’s vision reality takes the shape of a new post-atomic bunker, flashing light alternates with the new-
urban landscape in which the artist tries to portrait indi- sagent’s service light, symbolising multiple generative
vidualism between two people in the contemporary so- possibilities. This is how Self-Indicator of Sympathetic
ciety, turning it into some kind of gaseous matter (people, Pressure shelters the sacredness of the Intangible: remai-
in fact, can choose the level of difficulty of the empathy ning “under glass”, it shows its sensitive structure in an
exercises they are undertaking - the output from the action alien nudity.
being displayed thanks to a pneumatic system).
Like any spell worth this name, this bright detail unveils
The measurement activated by the device is sensitive; no the unavoidable playful soul of Vettorello’s devices. The
longer being the end goal, the tool is once again a me- same goes for the sketches that complete the exhibition
dium. Vettorello’s action changes its spots, the artist turns and for the exercises Self-Indicator’s “patient-users” can
into a communicator and the sculpture into his systematic perform. Sympathetic Pressure becomes a metaphor for
expedient. a critical yet playful understanding of our society. “It is
true that software cannot exercise its powers of lightness
At this point, Sympathetic Pressure takes on a role in so- except through the weight of hardware. But it is softwa-
ciety. According to this reasoning, the work of art could re that gives the orders, acting on the outside world and
potentially and utopically gain meaning in the medi- on the machines” (Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next
cal field too: it’s alive, it’s systematic, it’s “in circuit”. Millennium). Back to where we started. I now have in my
The messages and suggestions the device conveys to the mind Gianrico Carofiglio’s words at the end of his dia-
community overlap with the visual experience of the de- logue Il paradosso del poliziotto: “Investigative work re-
vice’s appearance each user is engaged with individually. quires mastery and technique and, at the same time, awa-
Among the air jets, a non-transcendent, undifferentiated reness of the fact that most cases are solved regardless of
and potential force, called qi in Oriental Medicine, is ge- technique. It requires compliance to the rules, both moral
nerated, disclosed through the device’s “breaths”. and legal, and, at the same time, suspension from any mo-
The blue and magenta wide painting forms an alchemy of ral judgment”.
shapes and colours, and in the fixity of contemplation the
colour unveils its poetic potential. The magical display is (One last note: David, the protagonist of Spielberg’s Arti-
a genuine imaginative expression resulting from the re- ficial Intelligence, was the first specimen of his kind).
lationship (“doing something together means achieving a
better result”, as the artist once told me during a visit to Perhaps it all makes sense.
his studio).
Here, in the pictorial creation (a language seemingly far
from technology) we can glimpse the intimistic potential
of Vettorello’s research. By investigating the contem-
porary condition of mankind, defined by an alternation
between moments of alienation and engagement with the
community, the Self-Indicator shifts between contempla-
tive fruition and performative action.

After all, we still live in the age of camouflage. Our con-
temporaneity and our daily lives are defined by action and
fixity.

At night the sculpture embodies the act in potency and
manifests itself in phenomenological terms just like