ALESSANDRO CARBONI
art practice and research strategies

CONTEXT investigates the idea of context (from the Latin con-tèxere = weaving together, intertwining) as the set of circumstances that define an event: a reflection on the relationship between the elements that constitute it and the same conditions that generated it. Intended as a prismatic object capable of making more things coexist together, the project Context comprises various visual and performative, textual and sound formats that embody the entire research process from different perspectives. An organism composed of different elements, continuously interacting with each other; a fabric with no centre nor border, a tangle with irregular densities made up of weaves with alternating spaces and proximity. Every format is interconnected with each other and – quoting Timothy Morton – “every entity seems strange. Nothing exists solely by itself, and so nothing is fully itself”.

The starting point is the geometric figure of the triangle, intended as the primary unit of the subdivision of space. These triangular units form a web that becomes a narrative, aesthetic and performative model that invites the contemplation of seriality, of rhythm, of incompleteness. The intent is to operate a geometric and discrete approximation of space that will allow us to observe the triangle as a reductive and expansive unit at the same time. Triangles build abstract worlds interwoven with choices and possibilities.  A geometric and discrete approximation of space, like an interconnecting mobile “mesh” in which infinite relationships and infinitesimal differences between the elements create continuous ramifications. 

Only the repetition of the choices allows the distribution of possibilities contained in the matrix, generatrix of paths and relationships between the spaces, the energies, the bodies.  Performative actions in which the performers are intended as manufacturing bodies, capable of being vehicles for variable and discontinuous energies and the infinite permutations of a context. A continuously updated analog map that attempts to render in three dimensions the fragility of the real and emotional space, the reverberation of the places or the stumbles of who those places cross for the first time. A mental space that becomes real only when it is crossed, only when what was thought or foreseen is experienced, touched, moved.

Imagining multiple possible developments of a never precisely defined context; trying to not-represent that nucleus of indetermination that lies at the heart of things. Context is a body of many arms moving in a space of possibilities. Context enters inevitably in the world, with its load of ambiguity, ready to be continuously rebuilt and disregarded.

All formats have a strong visual approach and they develop from the same founding principle: the idea of the double, of duality, of alternation. They have been developed in different places and contexts: from  theatres to natural locations, from museums to hybrid spaces to urban dimension. The works emerge from a continuous adaptation of the shapes to what surrounds and holds them; the images, the bodies and the choreographies develop according to the relationships that they have with the space and take completely different aesthetic forms. Depending on the location, different versions emerge, with a specific research topic starting from the same founding principle: the infinite combination in which the continuous flow of visual and performative creation crystallizes for a moment to start again flowing against the space.

The research and production process was built through a path, spatially and temporarily distributed, between 2019 and 2021 in various international residences between Europe, the US and Canada thanks to the support of BeSpectACTive as the winning project of the 2019 call, Formati Sensibili, Tir Danza, L’arboreto - Teatro Dimora, Amina/369gradi.

The first stages of the research were developed in New York, between the MoMA archives and the studios of the La MaMa theatre and in Montreal, within the cluster Le Parc and Pulse of the centre for arts and technologies Milieux in 2019. The production was instead developed between the end of 2019 and 2020, through several creative residences in Nitra, within Nitra Festival (Slovakia), in Costa Verde (Sardinia), at Sementerie Artistiche in Crevalcore (in collaboration with Domino Center in Zagreb and Bakelit Multi Art Center in Budapest) and L’Arboreto – Teatro Dimora, the Emilia-Romagna Residence Center. Context will debut in Sansepolcro as part of Kilowatt Festival.