“The Lorenzo Oggiano ‘Quasi-Objects’ portrait series features highly conceptual photographs that are a part of the artist’s highly experimental process. (…) Quasi-Objects takes inspiration from the production of biological organisms and ecosystems. Because they are so arbitrary and non-specific, these dynamic images aim to challenge the boundaries of human perception. Representative of the uncertainty of life, these pieces are often difficult to describe at first glance. From melting bubble forms to organic cell-like captures, the Lorenzo Oggiano Quasi-Objects portrait series is visually intriguing with images that stand apart from the crowd while paving the way for inspiration and encouraging the use of unconventional materials when creating memorable art.”
Jana Pijak, Trend Hunter Magazine Editor

“(…) Lorenzo Oggiano’s Environmental Monitoring System is a speculative thinking of the unexplored or unobserved reverberations of a different life, which makes visible the vulnerable encounter between variable living forms—be they organic or synthetic, proto-molecules or after- humans. His algorithmic generation and modulation of matter complicates what we determine as life, to the point that in our visual observation, we need to imagine the speculative future of living matter, to observe—in thought—the unpredictable and unknowable conditions through which living forms endure. From a perceptual environment to a contingent situation and the program of a new life— one that is radically denaturalized. This can help us to expand the definition or completely abandon the idea of ‘subjectivity:’ within new forms of embodiment, radically inhuman programs, non- organic or multi-organic codes—and always with the unbearable yet hope that we are to become something that we are not. (…)”
Sabin Bors, Freelance Curator – Editor

“In the future imagined by Lorenzo Oggiano in Cinematic Environment #2 and #8, there are no humans or bodies. There are just biological packages in this critique of the “classical anthropocentric/humanistic conceptions of life.” Oggiano explains the Quasi-Objects series as “informed by a systemic, holistic approach to life sciences, and therefore strongly driven by a multidisciplinary, nonhierarchical, nonlinear vision of living systems…” Life forms and systems are denatured and restructured. Oggiano used the synthetic and combinatory genesis of computer-generated imagery (CGI) as an operative advantage, replacing optically centered procedures with abstract morphogenic ones.”
Madeline Schwartzman, Writer – Teacher – Curator – Architect – Filmmaker

“(…) Un costante rifiorire di materia cellulare, catene sovrapposte di corolle bianco latte che si schiudono lucide, pronte a muoversi, sospese come tante cupole, come interi reticolati di calici e pistilli. Forme vigili concepite per accogliere, avvolgere e per testimoniare tutto, tutto il reale che si trova loro intorno (…) ogni ambiente di Oggiano è una metamorfosi ritratta in stasi. L’artista, lavorando in bilico tra l’infinitamente piccolo e l’infinitamente grande, crea un fuori che deve tramutarsi in un dentro. Guardare queste serre avvolge gli occhi in un guscio di benessere ipnotico, attraverso il quale si entra in relazione con un luogo di contemplazione. Un altrove veicolo di quella esperienza estetica che conduce alla percezione dell’esistenza attraverso i sensi (…)”
Ginevra Bria, Independent Art Critic – Curator

“(…) With his Quasi-Objects series Oggiano uses videos and pictures to construct microcosmical environments. The final visual product is balanced between two opposite dimensions of being. On one side the object of that particular microcosm built by algorithms lack the organic life. On the other side, since we can see them, they exist. Oggiano creates impossible worlds in the real space, which are feasible by seeing and hearing. These worlds are inhabitated by things that do not correspond to substance, but to the software’s calculation. They cannot be carried out in our daily life. Nevertheless they exist since we can see their movements and evolutions. As their title suggest they are ‘almost’ objects and that adverb denies any empirical dimension. Obviously when we see them there is a relationship between us as the perceiving subject and the perceived object. But these works are not mere aesthetic manifestations or hedonistic declarations of technical virtuosity. This is not something virtual. Virtual is something that is in potency, and cannot be perceived concretely and empirically. Here this world is firmly apparent but it simply shows itself by different laws from those of the organic materials. This is not a possibile nature in the future, but a different possible life.”
Emanuela Pezzetta, Independent Art Critic – Curator

“Lorenzo Oggiano’s project ‘Quasi-Objects’ is esoteric but fascinating. (…) This work sits in a largely untested region, where art and science begin to overlap, where both subjective and objective study are equally acceptable epistemic modes. (…)”
Harry Warwick, Fussed Magazine

“(…) A monito di una società, quella contemporanea, che sembra quasi aver paura di adottare gli ibridi e i diversi, di pensare la mescolanza e la mediazione, di abbandonarsi alla proliferazione di quelle entità miste prefigurate da Latour, i Quasi-Objects di Oggiano appaiono come retaggi romantici di un tempo ancora là da venire, come creature bellissime fino a ieri nascoste nel buio dei nostri limiti tecnologici ed estetici, ma oggi splendenti nel loro processo di sintesi digitale, finalmente libere da qualsiasi riferimento al reale conosciuto, alla veridicità dell’esistente, figlie di un futuro ancora da immaginare (…)”
Marco Mancuso, New Media Art Critic – Curator

“(…) Seppur partendo da una base profondamente razionale e rigidamente calcolata di una nuova realtà iperreale, le opere di Oggiano mantengono (…) un potenziale rifiuto della rappresentazione stessa per una messa in discussione del criterio stesso di somiglianza. E’ un immaginario che conduce inevitabilmente a quel valore olistico dell’immagine, a quelle ”differenze” quale trapasso continuo delle forme secondo un eccitazione virtuale dell’immagine che non troverà mai un appagamento.”
Enrico Piras / Alessandro Sau, Artists – Curators

“(…) Media artists understand digital images as material for inventing new imagery and therefore can be shaped, visualised and experienced dependent on medial contexts. It is not the point to fake or imitate but the becoming and visualising of artistic world creations which pick up existing procedures and techniques (which already exist in digitally produced feature films (e.g. “Lord of the Rings”), video clips, cartoons and also in everyday coverage as commercials) – and which are used unconventionally on the one hand. On the other hand they are thematically questioned anew in many different ways. In Lorenzo Oggiano’s work “Quasi Objects” the question arises, to what extent matters of science such as medicine (which are shown to us through modern imaging methods as models in computer animations) can connect with our emotions and fears. Because of its medial representation the beholder is alarmed by what Oggiano shows. The mutating objects threaten us because we associate them with images from medicine (e.g. images of viruses) (…)”
Manfred Blohm, Teacher – Researcher

“(…) Mesmerized by these quasi-creatures, the spectator’s gaze cannot leave the screen, where disturbances, interferences, and stripes make the display even more realistic. Electronic buzzing and popping sounds, a hint of voices in the background, complete the scene. Oggiano’s Quasi-objects were already remarkable creations. Seeing them living is another, recommended, experience.”
Matteo Bachetti, Astrophysicist

“(…) Lorenzo Oggiano (…) a développé sa réflexion et écrit une thèse sur les intéractions qu’entretiennent l’art contemporain et les nouvelles technologies: le corps de la mutation. C’est en utilisant les nouvelles technologies de créations numériques, notamment la 3D qu’il développe depuis les années 90 sa recherche plastique et théorique basées sur la biologie, les sciences cognitives et sensorielles. Il crée des environnements sensoriels où l’image synthétique, le trucage, la manipulation deviennent réel. Le travail d’Oggiano s’illustre dans un monde macroscopique, celui de la biologie cellulaire. Son corpus de série intitulé “Quasi-Objects” commencé en 2003 et toujours actuel est un projet se composant de vidéos 3D et d’impressions dans lesquelles il re-dessine l’Organique. Il modifie la structure originelle des éléments organiques, les reorganise et leurs fait subir des mutations. (…)
Lutin Onspeed, Chef de projet Collapsemag

“(…) the work of Oggiano not only showed how the mnesic processes are based on the recording of traces on a medium – whether cerebral or film -; but above all they elaborated a new model of self representation that demonstrates how complex and difficult the actual process of memory analysis and recovery is. (…)”
Alice Autelitano, Teacher – Researcher

“(…) Language art might be approaching a threshold that is physical (as in Jenny Holzer’s installations), quasi-organic (as in Lorenzo Oggiano’s quasi-objects), and database generative (as in Zeitguised techniques). These vectors converge from high art, AI, and motion graphics. The transformative potential of digital media operates at the interstice of disciplines. (…) Lorenzo Oggiano’s Quasi-Objects (2003-) are time-based sculptural quasi-object videos which derive their existential complexity from code. (…) Oggiano makes morph objects generated entirely in cgi, responsive blob organisms that bloom to glitch soundtracks. Oggiano grows his video quasi-objects from state machines following laminar Perlin-speckled L-system entrails. Lichen or algae filled tidal pools with shallow depth-of-field and glitch audio synchronous with spatial change. These are Phong-gleaming abstract sculptures adrift in particle soup. Imagine that in some hypothetical thread of the multiverse, quasi-objects fuse with real sculpted letterform objects. In that hypothetical future, Jenny Holzer will be recognized as a key figure in the evolution of dimensional poetic objects. Her Times-Square-style interventions sprout as LED curves from walls or wash over floors in waves. Her constrained immediately-identifiable aesthetic navigates a tension between propaganda and intimacy. By extruding language in retro tech (LED low-resolution displays) Holzer plays with advertising’s narcissist chase after the next and newest, subverting its presence by postulating a world where words flow as ubiquitously and visibly as a (toxic?) rain. Imagine Oggiano’s quasi-objects made physical letterforms from which Holzer made installations out of metamorphic alloys, and you have probably imagined a shot with similarities to a Zeitguised video.(…) In a hybrid hypothetical future, letterforms physicalize, enhanced with digital meta-data, their embodied entity-status preceded by many generations of living in close symbiotic contact with images. (…)”
David (Jhave) Johnston, Digital Poet – Teacher – Researcher

“Gelling photographic and videographic materials via a 3-d modelling tactic, Lorenzo Oggiano’s Quasi Objects series of prints and videos presents a set of synthetic organic landscapes and microscopic biological particle simulations. The added surface noise, those glitches, grains & flecks found on aged celluloid have been superimposed to give an impression of a labtech documentary aesthetic. The concepts of cellular division, morphogenesis, evolution and creationism are implied, here however they are the product of digital collage & generative grammar (…) wonderful video compositions.”
Paul Prudence, Artist – Real-Time Visual Performer

“(…) Le teorie della relatività ristretta e generale elaborate da Albert Einstein, l’interpretazione probabilistica e antideterminista della meccanica quantistica e l’incipiente Teoria delle Stringhe hanno rivoluzionato completamente la concezione dell’universo con eterogenee implicazioni nelle differenti discipline scientifiche ed in quelle umanistiche, tali da ripensare completamente la strutturazione dei codici fondamentali della natura. Il percorso artistico di Lorenzo Oggiano si è protratto contro ogni metafisica dell’essere, contro ogni idealismo di perfezione e compiutezza, contro tutte le ipotesi di costituzione genetica create da pregiudizi storici, orientandosi verso una complessità irriducibile che tiene conto della vocazione alla complementarietà insita nella dinamica irrefrenabile del cammino umano, un processo costante costellato da sforzi pioneristici (…)”
Piero Pala, Independent Art Critic – Curator

“(…) Oggiano mescola oggettivismo e soggettivismo. L’arte non è più espressione o impressione, ma costruzione e progettazione di nuove forme che esistono e non esistono nello stesso tempo. Idealmente vicini alle tradizionali nature morte, i quasi-oggetti digitali alludono a quella nuova realtà sorgente che abbastanza presto intersecherà la propria direttrice con quella del mondo reale. Allora forse si produrrà uno scontro in cui anche l’oggetto, dopo il soggetto moderno, entrerà in crisi identitaria (…)”
Nicola Davide Angerame, Independent Art Critic – Curator

“(…) micromondi, perfetti, lontanissimi, sospesi nel tempo, abitati da (quasi)oggetti che, sebbene al di là delle categorie umano/non umano, naturale/artificiale, in qualche maniera ci riguardano. Spore, tentacoli, ciglia si allungano verso lo spettatore, galleggiano in uno spazio indefinito. La vita e i suoi sviluppi sono prodotto del calcolo, processi sintetizzati con l’utililizzo di sofisticati software di modellazione e animazione 3d. (…) La ricerca di Lorenzo Oggiano parte dalla vita, dalla ineluttabilità dei suoi mutamenti: le sue opere riguardano la probabilità di mondi, la classificazione di (nostre) possibili evoluzioni con attenzione critica alle tecniche e ai percorsi della ricerca scientifica contemporanea.”
Roberta Gucci Cantarini, Independent Art Critic – Curator

“(…) la materializzazione nell’immagine di forme primordiali, dalle superfici neutre, traslucide, immerse in uno spazio surreale in cui esplodono i colori, in grado di trascinare l’osservatore in una dimensione sensoriale sinestetica, quasi allucinatoria (…)”
Stefania Biamonti, Journalist

“(…) despite the fact that we can define the quasi-objects in their artificiality as products of numerical calculus, they still have a seductive yet disconcerting effect on us. From the grotesque excrescences, dark folds, pistils like piliferous bulbs, exaggeratingly fast growth of the sharp rose-coloured thorns and superfluous forms multiplying at a terrific rate, we can instantly sense a vitality of which we have no biological/scientific knowledge. We can only but accept the existence of these hybrid bodies, expressed through everyday means of communication: they enact corporeality at new levels of intensity that we are already experiencing. As Baudrillard said only a few years ago:’today, it is the real that has become the alibi of the model, in a world controlled by the principle of simulation. And, paradoxically, it is the real that has become our true Utopia – but a Utopia that is no longer in the realm of the possible, that can only be dreamt of as one would dream of a lost object’ (…)”
Claudia Attimonelli, Independent Art Critic – Curator