'Pathetic Fallacy' Marco Giordano at Il Colorificio, Milan

Giordano reflects on the visual and conceptual colonization of the different, pondering the typical human attitude of searching for anthropic factors in the organic and the inorganic. The site-specific installation is composed by five long silicon strings (Duuude, 2017) hanged up to the ceiling and animated by an Arduino engine. Some LED plantation lights illuminate the exhibition space, with a violet light shade. A violet lm has been applied in the shop window and in the neon sign store, marking further the border between inside and outside. The sinuous lines generated by the Duuuude’s movements inevitably brought back to something of organic or anthropic. Otherwise, the artificial nature of the silicon, made up by inorganic polymers, generates a contradiction. The question is how one of the most synthetic materials ever created by man could be appear vital or animated, and which is the visitor’s duty. The violet light is pervasive and recalls the human’s control of the nature through artificial tools that, in this case, could only fail.

Following an abstract from the critical essay by Stefano Collicelli Cagol: “Keeping in mind Giordano’s previous projects, one could consider that what is at play here falls into the category of the abject. Hal Foster sustains that in the 80’s and 90’s the abject was always represented explicitly by contemporary artists – from Cindy Sherman to Mike Kelley – who considered reality as a traumatic event. In recent years though, the strategy has mutated and the abject seems to be in absentia or better yet, it is no longer represented, but just evoked, absorbed or capable of absorbing anyone inside it. No longer solely connected to trauma, the reflection on reality in relation to the abject seems to refer to a more subtle psychological aspect: to the everyday pressure caused by the sensual regime, by the perpetual state of excitement of our potentia gaudendi – as foreseen by Paul B. Preciado – the pleasure our bodies can experience. The artist doesn’t limit himself to making visible what is invisible but uses the available technology and the exhibition as a space that institutionalizes the aesthetics of certain social and economic practices. This way, he reflects on the biological condition of the 21st century.”