What pivotal moments or experiences led you to become the artist and designer you are today?

I would like to point out that before being an artist and a designer, I am a man, an individual, a person and this connotation becomes fundamental and inseparable from the profession that one practices. In fact, the values and beliefs that are determined in the individual are then transmitted, inevitably, in the practice of the profession. I do not believe in those models, even artistic ones, within which profiles of technically very good characters but humanly terrible people are outlined. For what are my deep convictions, the characteristics of "homo faber" and those of "homo sapiens" must coexist, align and overlap because there is an unequivocal transfer of values between the individual and what he practices professionally.

Coming to your question, there have been no dazzling conditions or all-encompassing experiences but rather a complex, long and sometimes even difficult path within which I have sedimented experiences, skills, practices, values and ideas in order to filter and condense, as one proceeds for an elixir, the best of every event.

I am convinced that life, essentially, does not defend us, and therefore, it is necessary to organize ourselves as best as possible by trying to deepen, study and plan, constantly improving ourselves. What we will save of our human integrity will not only be what we have protected, perhaps even naively, but rather what we have been able to evolve, strengthen, and progress, keeping clear the objective of an existence in whose perimeter morality and ethics are always untouchable cornerstones. As a creative, I outline aesthetic scenarios, but I want their contents to also be ethical and even if it seems only a literal trick or perhaps a verbal coincidence, you can notice that the word "ethics" is contained in the term "aesthetics".

Are there any specific aspects of living and working in Turin, Italy, that have shaped your practice? 

There are incontrovertible aspects that have proved suitable to direct me rather than shape me but I would define them more of a metaphysical nature than rational. Surely the "project" parameter of research and innovation, although now dormant, that the city, in its value and in its attributions, has always embodied and expressed has decreed a discreet charm as well as a personal attraction.

Furthermore, even if this is more than an impalpable suggestion, the "intellectual climate" of the Piedmontese capital has generated and induced an approach to the artistic perimeter and its relative collaterals. The city of Turin has always been actively involved in the perimeters of social renewal and cultural innovation, contributing to the formation of a precise artistic conscience, which has never wanted to be a substitute for what had preceded it but, in fact, over time has collected a legacy and a respectful and very significant testimony. Many artistic-conceptual (but also scientific and engineering) proposals were, in fact, born and developed in the context of Turin's intellectual growth (just to give a few examples, the engine, the decimal metric system, fractals, pathogenic human anatomy, poor art...). Sometimes, the reflection that separates a declination from its matrix remains small but still of elaborate support and therefore, even if there may never be a tangible confirmation of this "theory", I would like to think that some subliminal influence capable of contributing to this understanding with the city may have occurred.

However, it is in this city that I was able to have exchanges, relationships and insights with personalities who contributed culturally and intellectually to enhance their specific areas of interaction. Just to give a few references: Armando Testa, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Augusto Morello, Alessandro Baricco…….

In your bio, your work is described as a 'prevalent perceptual and conceptual synthesis' that re-elaborates didactic, cultural, and intellectual interactions. Can you elaborate on this process of synthesis? 

In the process that my artistic research faces, a stratification and sedimentation creeps in, and this occurs starting from my studies that were realized by diversifying and if at a first analysis they appear not very homogeneous, over time, they have instead proved to be very useful. In fact, I obtained a diploma in Applied Industrial Physics and then diverted my interests towards Architecture and subsequently Design. In the meantime, I have never stopped acquiring new knowledge and by adopting the prototype of the working student, I have obtained other skills and other diplomas such as those in Car Design (styling), Restoration (stone and wood materials), in communication, in writing. Furthermore, having started my professional career in the advertising field (as an illustrator and then Art Director), I believe I have stored different and transversal skills and expertise so as to have to arrive, inexorably, at a synthesis. 

Obviously, I am not sure that this process can be said to be concluded but certainly the deep curiosity that pushes me towards differentiated approaches then serves to elaborate and support a profound intellectual development. Furthermore, my artistic elaboration takes inspiration, above all and also, from everyday life and I hope that in this assumption one can perceive and appreciate the will to succeed in extracting artistic contents from the enormous social material with which we interact.

What can you tell us about the conceptual and visual networks of your submitted work, Responsible Consumerism?

The work “Responsible Consumerism” is part of a contemporary social, almost civic art, and outlines a graphic model designed to induce reflection. I believe that we should not underestimate the power of an image that, at times, proves to be much more effective than many words, especially if empty or useless. If an icon catalyzes and condenses sensations, emotions or even doubts capable of generating reflections, it manages to outline new iconographies from stratification, or rather the real images will replace those seen and experienced in an emotional way. Therefore, whoever looks at the icon of a barcode will see, even if only in their unconscious, a code with vegetation and this could persuade them to change their behavior by developing new choices and orienting them towards a different consumerist trampling. Obviously the general premise of this approach must coincide with empathy for that image, but if the visual media (in their entirety: TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards, social media...) were also committed to disseminating significant images rather than peddling the futility of pseudo news, probably the path towards the acquisition of a broader social conscience would be less tortuous and much quicker.

You've published several books that serve as aids to reflection and deepening of your conceptual and philosophical research. Can you discuss the relationship between your writing and your visual art? 

The relationship between writing and art is revealed to be intertwined and very interconnected because sometimes I take inspiration from words to elaborate new images or vice versa through the complicity of an image I deepen a concept.

As far as my creative, conceptual and intellectual elaboration process is concerned, both writing and art reveal themselves to be assonant elements and contribute to filling the individual gaps. However, both are salvific attitudes because they force me to elaborate, to question myself, to scan my human awareness and each one declines, without interference, in the best interpretation of itself.

I love words because they become the incarnation of our living, they flourish, they recombine, they never wear out. They are the concrete expression of virtue. The history of the world and its becoming are also the history of its words, the primary source of knowledge. Words are the support that underlie dynamics, exchange, vitality, contamination, all-encompassing and even if this miracle does not happen with images, I can, however, always, through words, fall into the meanders of conceptual parentheses that allow me to celebrate new visual apparitions. I believe, in fact, that concepts are not banal clippings that lose value and elegance but are elements suitable for placing oneself with empathy towards a communicative lexicon, be it literal or visual.

Could you elaborate on a project that deeply embodies the theme of sustainability within your practice?

In my artistic process I have divided the theme through a concept of immaterial sustainability and the other of material sustainability. In the area of immaterial sustainability, since the most bitter criticisms are often directed towards projects, elaborations or proposals that highlight excessive complexity, difficult understanding, poor application or perhaps even enormous uselessness, to overturn this perspective approach I have coined the term "ARTE INCETTUALE" (***Not translatable into English), halfway between useless and conceptual.

The result of this anthropological and methodological reflection on the subject, materializes in this verbal ideation, in order to explore and discover that many human manifestations are probably (or could be...) useless but are still useful. In fact, they are useful to support, to smile, to think, to dream, to rework, to interpret... in short, to live.

In the area of that material sustainability mentioned, I have created many works that involve this approach. I will mention, for brevity, only two: “Let’s keep the distances” and “Daily Wimbledon”.

The first, made with a simple metal meter, tells instead of this invention inherent to human relationships that seems to be a sort of interior geography through which to trace distances and/or maintain them. Obviously everything is an appearance, an artifice to keep us away from fear, ours but also that of others, a way to measure existence and deliver us to a limit or perhaps even to try to overcome it.

The second, made with used materials (old wicker carpet beaters) wants to offer support to that multiple and unknown repetitiveness that is often cruelly denigrated and that instead for its effort, self-denial and its incessant work becomes instead an attribution of value and merit almost as if it were a victory at Wimbledon. In fact, it suggests a path of knowledge that undertakes a reflection of experience and that seems to find comfort even in habitual gestures and thoughts, even if often ignored and underestimated.

You mentioned that your work often involves a dialogue between 'concrete poverty' and digital art. What do you mean by this line of thought?

When I mention the term “Concrete Poverty” I am referring to creating art, also inspired by the dictates of the Arte Povera movement of the 1960s, and therefore using materials considered poor. Sometimes they are defined as poor because they are miserable, minimalist, banal, linear or perhaps simply because they are used. The concreteness of this basicity, which some also define as insignificance, becomes instead, for me, a reason for the rehabilitation of the object and, therefore, even in its “poor essence”, it fulfills a noble purpose which is to become the ambassador of a concept, a thought, a reflection. 

The dialogue with digital art is fulfilled only in the alternation of works. In fact, using “poor” objects (whether they are reused objects or simple paper or pages of books, industrial objects or anything else….) I tend to elaborate and create installations, small sculptures, collages…. while with the help of digital art (often also considered to be of a minor series), I elaborate different concepts that I could not realize with other supports. I do not preclude, a priori, the use of one technique to the detriment of others, but I try to identify the best execution method to enhance the purpose and the objective to be achieved.

As an artist with an extensive career in art and design, what advice would you give emerging artists? What are the most important lessons you've learned throughout your artistic journey?

It’s an insidious question both because I am not sure that a young artist would want to be advised and because I myself do not believe I am in a position to express it. 

What I can certainly say, in less circumscribed terms and which becomes a sort of assimilated lesson, concerns the moral and ethical approach to be supported and maintained. An artist must possess and nourish his inner nobility, and although he must not preclude himself from anything, he must not aspire only to fame, notoriety, and success. He must procure his own and evolved poetics, he must annihilate every preconception and traverse with exquisiteness and eternal curiosity that existential narration that deliberately detaches itself from ignorance, caprice, egocentrism. The task and the objective of art is also to unmask the ridiculous and, above all, to avoid kneeling before temptations, perhaps only to obtain some limited and temporary consensus.

Art and artists play various roles in the fabric of contemporary society. How do you see artistic practices advancing sustainability and social consciousness?

Obviously I am not naive or a utopian fanatic, and therefore, I am perfectly aware that artistic practice is one of the many supports through which one can intervene or shape the social conscience of individuals even if there is no precise confirmation that it can truly succeed in its attempt. Surely art needs allies to promote new objectives, to affect and modify the social conscience of the human so that it evolves and transits towards levels of acquired and rooted awareness.

I believe that the humanoid evolutionary model remains hinged on the emulative scheme. Therefore, in order for our existential sublimation to transit towards visions of lesser fallibility, it would be appropriate to complain less and correct, individually, each specific daily strategy so that this action, if well done, can become a reference and therefore positively contagious.

Tolerability but also tolerance can only be acquired through competence, and if we all became more competent we could abandon the age of ignorance and move towards a future and a fascinating future with a distinctive sign.

What message or call to action would you like to share with our readers?

The message I want to share comes from my existential motto that I have summarized as follows: "He who fails to convince, tries to amaze".

In fact, I have noticed that in everyday life, those who do not elaborate significantly pregnant concepts to induce to be followed (therefore not being convincing ...) end up triggering evasive, sensational, choreographic attitudes that serve more to amaze, or perhaps even ensnare, rather than supporting a corroborating debate, a serious discussion or a deep doubt.

It is necessary that the unfinished can be resolved and the verb does not get stuck or coagulate on useless and biased details. Effort is certainly a duty, perhaps even necessary and often indispensable. The important thing is to never mortify common sense but above all intelligence because it represents the true driving force of every human being and only through it can our evolution become unchallenged, far-sighted and balanced.

Know more about the artist here.

Cover image:

Marine Dissolution by Luciano Caggianello.

Portrait image:

Still Life by Luciano Caggianello.

All images courtesy of Luciano Caggianello.