Quasi-Objects / BW-Studies, 2008-2009

Quasi-Objects / C-Studies is a limited edition series of sixteen prints that I produced between 2008 and 2009.
The first fourteen prints are preparatory studies for the video Quasi-Objects / Cinematic Environment #7 (see the previous page), and were produced in a limited edition of 3 (2 editions sized 60×43 cm, 1 edition sized 70×50 cm).
The last two prints (titled BW-Study #301 and BW-Study #303) represent a development of the previous ones. They were also produced in a limited edition of 3, but in a larger format: two sizes (2 editions sized 120×85 cm, 1 edition sized 140×100 cm).
All works have been printed with archival pigment-based inks on “Hahnemühle FineArt Pearl 285 gsm” paper. The “Hahnemühle FineArt Pearl 285 gsm” paper is one of my favorites for black and white printing due to its outstanding qualities, such as its smooth pearlescent surface, excellent tonal range, deep blacks, and high archival stability.

Completed in 2013, the Quasi-Objects cycle consists of ten videos, video installations, and over one hundred prints and preparatory studies, all generated using 3D modeling and animation software.

Its title, borrowed from Nous n’avons jamais été modernes by Bruno Latour (which in turn refers to reflections advanced by Michel Serres in Le Parasite and Statues), represents my intention to make a precise reference to that ‘regime of ontological undecidability’ which, at least since the second half of the last century, has progressively and definitively reshaped the order of ‘men and things.’

Processing its synthetic-combinatory genesis as an operational advantage within a practice of organic (re)-design of organisms and ecosystems, the Quasi-Objects cycle intends to stimulate thought and dialogue about the ongoing relativization of natural forms of life as a result of techno-biological evolution. By subordinating the classical conception of representation (its optical-discursive apparatus) to an ‘aesthetic of process’—in which the sensory outcome emerges from a computational morphogenesis, through an an-optic procedure that actualizes it—the project aims to assert the opportunity to conceptualize the living in terms of a dynamic relationships between processes: a transient output of an operative practice independent of the material component.

As entities emerging in the absence of ontological referents, synthetic images shift attention from the ‘image’ itself to its embodied ‘knowledge quota,’ helping us to become aware of our rapidly evolving relationship with the alterity due to an increasingly intertwined technological apparatus with the bio-genetical one … moving toward a non-dialectical reconciliation with the ‘Alterity,’ beyond any stable representation that preserves the proliferation of the ‘Difference.’

Life is a real and autonomous process independent of any specific material manifestation, a generative grammar independent of the bearer (s)object.

Please note: the works featured on this page are a selection from the series. Images of all the works and further information about the project are available upon request.

Year : 2008
Tech Specs : Archival Pigment-Based Inks, Hahnemühle FineArt Pearl 285 gsm, Edition of 3 (Various Dimensions)
Copy & Credits : Lorenzo Oggiano