EFFIMERA – Sounds, Lights, Visions at @mata_modena

From 18 March to 7 May 2017, MATA, the new space in Modena devoted to contemporary culture, will host the show EFFIMERA – Sounds, Lights, Visions, curated by Fulvio Chimento and Luca Panaro, exhibiting works by Carlo Bernardini (1966), Sarah Ciracì (1972), and Roberto Pugliese (1982).

Carlo Bernardini, Spazio Permeabile, 2009

Roberto Pugliese, Emergenze acustiche, 2013

Sarah Ciracì, Like an ocean with its waves…, 2017

The opening is scheduled for 18 March at 6 pm. The artists will be present. Admittance is free. The show is organized in collaboration with Modena’s Galleria Civica and comes with a rich schedule of collateral events of interest, featuring the exhibiting artists but also thinkers and experts in the field of “art and technology”. The show has been realized with the support of Coptip and of Gruppo Fotografico Grandangolo BFI. Effimera is at its second edition, consistent with the intention stated by its curators in 2016: finding and promoting artists, preferably Italian artist with some international experience, that make the advanced use of technology their signature style. This exhibition aims at a critical investigation of the most recent artistic trends characterized by the “New Media”, moments of growth and nation-wide aggregation around key theme such as art, technology, and communication. In 2016, Effimera found its core in the Web, meant as an instrument of artistic and relational knowledge thanks to the artists that were featured in that edition, like Eva and Franco Mattes, Carlo Zanni, and Diego Zuelli. The 2017 edition, focuses on the analysis of the immaterial component of today’s artistic research, exposed (and summarized) within an exhibit tour that also includes the creation of a sensorial journey through recent artistic trends. In 2017, the curators have divided the 500 sq. m. of MATA into three different spaces: there, the point of departure for the sensorial journey is sound artist Roberto Pugliese’s research on sound, whereas the point of arrival are the optical fiber light installations by Carlo Bernardini. Finally, the tour articulates around Sarah Ciracì’s fluctuating digital frescoes. EFFIMERA – Sounds, Lights, Visions is built around an eminently immersive exhibit tour, specifically designed and structured for MATA: three imposing environmental installations, adjacent but separate, mark a linguistic and temporal distinction, but at the same time suggest an idea of continuity within the development of art. The message the curators of the 2017 edition want to convey is: art is a total and totalizing experience that can stimulate the intellect but also jeopardize the senses.
In order to emphasize the specific quality of the approach they opted for, the curators sought to involve artists belonging to three different generations – to the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s respectively – reflecting an equal number of ways to understand the interaction between art and technology. Effimera’s distinctive trait is the investigation of an artwork with a focus on its immaterial components, so to shed light on its intrinsic dimension. Indeed, the production of the artists of the last generation is characterized for its highly ephemeral component, which is connected with their modus operandi, expression of the times we are living in. Not by chance, this initiative is named after that animal species with the shortest life-span on earth: the ephemera, a small aquatic insect similar to a dragonfly whose existence lasts around an hour and a half. Another pillar of Effimera is the consideration that for today’s observers, the artwork is no more a unique fact: thanks to technology, any single copy has the same quality of its original, to which its is practically identical.

Collateral Events Scheduled

• Saturday, 25 March, 5 pm: “Arte e tecnologia: dai primi Duemila a oggi”, a talk by Fabio Cavallucci, Director of Centro Pecci in Prato.
• Saturday, 8 April, 5 pm: meeting with artists Carlo Bernardini, Sarah Ciracì, Roberto Pugliese.
• Saturday, 29 April, 5 pm: “Suoni, luci, visioni. Arte e filosofia dell’effimero”, a talk by Tommaso Tuppini, Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Verona.

All the events will feature Fulvio Chimento and Luca Panaro as moderators.