INTERROGATING SPACE

by Francesco Castellani

The modular sculpture series DIMENSIONLESS represents the completion of a broader reflection on space/direction/dimension previously initiated with the 2015 series Directionless. In both series, the module/vector acts as the activating sign that generates dynamics questioning space in entirely different ways: where, in Directionless, the tensions produced by the work engaged directional space and the vector signals of the modules gave rise to possible trajectories without providing any privileged direction, here, in Dimensionless, the modules/vectors articulate force conflicts, perceptual vibrations, and new relational dynamics of forms in dimensional space, urging the viewer into a dialectical interaction with the experience of dimension as the absence of reference systems and as a perceptual opportunity to freely recreate a personal scale relationship with the forms within the space–place–environment.

The volumetric geometry of space is thus on one hand affected, remodulated, and altered by the phenomenon; at the same time, no spatial certainty can be detected within the ongoing modification, except the awareness of a permanent transformation that generates positive tensions—necessary, yet impossible to calculate in advance.

A DIFFERENT PERCEPTUAL SCALE

by Pio Pistilli – physicist

In a crime film, an agent must take detailed photos of a murder scene near an old railway line. Before beginning, she places a 10-dollar bill clearly on the ground to photograph it in each shot. The known dimensions of the bill determine the scale of everything else in the photos; without it, one could not infer the size of the other objects. In the DIMENSIONLESS series, Jasmine Pignatelli has removed the equivalent of that bill. If the bill fixes absolute scale, its removal creates a different perception of space, one that avoids privileged scales and introduces new spatial references. The attempt is to influence the observer’s perceptual possibilities and the spatial possibilities of the work through a kind of geometrization of the environment. Directionless and Dimensionless represent two different ways of using the same module/vector, and the title asks the viewer to focus on two different characteristics of space: direction and dimension. In DIMENSIONLESS, the modules, all parallel, fix no dimension or scale other than the one imagined or perceived by the observer.