Rosetta

A black stele with brilliant reflections. The texture, revealed by light, is a visual synthesis of the signs left in the bark by the insect Ips Typographus. Signs of an entomological language are translated, through a customized algorithm, into a decipherable mathematical idiom. Four years after Tempesta Vaia, Rosetta searches for a correspondence between cause and effect, between languages and distant worlds. A series of works that takes inspiration from a beetle to tell the terrestrial reality with a reference to the science fiction world; an alien world, metallic, made of matter and extra-natural reflections. The starting element is the computational landscape, modeled on the insect’s carving technique, which becomes a sculptural sign through numerical control engraving on wood. The two elements of the composition, the digital grooves and the weave of the linen, are enhanced through the technique of frottage: graphite, rubbed on the canvas, gives shine to the work, highlighting signs and unexpected textures. Rosetta connects man, technology and biology in a post-humanist vision. It reminds us that the landscape is based on delicate balances and that the alteration, even of just one of them, has repercussions on the whole system.

The Rosetta series is realized in collaboration with the Centro Studi per l’Ambiente Alpino of San Vito di Cadore (University of Padua). This work is part of Cantieredivaia, the research programme launched by DC in 2019, in the aftermath of Tempesta Vaia, and still fully active.