Light compositions
During my aesthetic wandering, photography allows me to play with my visual drifts. My perceptions of everyday life and travel offer me many contrasts and profoundly change my appreciation of what exists, my view of the unsuspected. I follow the shadows and reflections, recurrent in my work, they are an obsession. Light is the source of my compositions. It hides itself, transforms itself, offers new forms, sometimes supernatural compositions, sometimes just to underline a detail of what surrounds us. Light guides us and awakes us, it rhymes with our days, it guides me in my work and makes me see what it wants in an obvious way, it is elemental to me.
\ Agata Emma is a French and Polish artist based in Brussels, practising photography and collage. Through her artistic practice, she captures, collects, accumulates, and combines various elements, often blurring the boundaries between these mediums. This interplaybetween photography and collage forms an integral part of her expression. She studied at the Higher School of Art in Biarritz, France, and holds an MBA in Cultural Engineering and Management from Paris. Currently, she works as an assistant in the production and facilitation of an artist’s work in Brussels, demonstrating her commitment to the arts and creative processes \
Elemental Heterotopia
Even the city has its elementals.
Small dots around which everything else revolves. Aggregators of mobile particles around, which rotate, rotate, rotate.
And then, suddenly, they flee – finding their way.
Very fluid and no longer static, the roundabouts are the 5.0 version of the crossroads, the urban hub par excellence.
v. 1.0 – The city originated from a crossroads (aggregation time).
v. 2.0 – The market originated from a crossroads (action time).
v. 3.0 – The square originated from a crossroads (construction time).
v. 4.0 – The traffic light originated from a crossroads (discipline time).
v. 5.0 – Roundabouts: what originates from an intersection that becomes round, and fluid, and slippery? Inside that circular piece of land, it seems that anything can happen (liquid time, ours).
Branched synapse of the viability. Irreducible. Elemental.
Places that are a heterotopia – “place of the Other” –, circular enclosures that, like atomic nuclei, remain fixed at the center of a constant motion.
Are we sure we really know them?
\ Tommaso Antiga (Homme de lettres) is an architect and PhD student in Architecture at the University of Trieste, previously graduated from the Master’s Degree in Architecture at the University of Udine with a thesis in the form of a speech on the theme of death and its places, carried out with the prof. arch. Giovanni La Varra. His current research focuses on the relation between the city and the forest, reforestation and urban regeneration, as well as on the themes of ecology, nonviolence and Buddhism. In his spare timehe’s an aspiring writer \
Mon réservoir est une poterie d’argile tombée d’éden, maelström des eaux célestes, je respire le souffle divin, et dans mon cœur brule une étoile.
S’il y a une logique dans le développement élémentaire de l’homme, elle cheminerait des ténèbres du néant à l’organicité de la terre, en creusant jusqu’au magma de la création dans les profondeursbenthiques, avant de ressurgir et couver la surface aquatique en air libre qui s’évaporera dans tous les sens, se sublimant en quintessence lumineuse qui régnera partout.
Néant, inconscient. (Suis-je ?)
Ténèbres, amnios où je faisais mes ablutions pour racheter mes ancêtres et me purifier de tous les pêchers à commettre après ma naissance. Les limites qui me séparent de l’obscur essence qui sous-tend l’espace-temps sont floues. Je suis ces ténèbres, les limites et la masse informe qui tend à s’en séparer. Contre-volonté de l’antimatière, mes ténèbres sont l’anti çà, mon corps est l’anti-moi et mes limites sont taillées comme les incisives qui croquèrent la première pomme. Ce pneuma qui nous mène du noumène au phénomène, n’ajoutera à la race humaine qu’une bouche à nourrir, un cœur à souffrir, des rêves à poursuivre et une mort à achever. Voilà pourquoi je vivrai ma mort comme une bouche qui s’est gavée de rêves, et endurerai mon cœur comme une souffrance bien poursuivie.
Gravité, espace. (Je pense donc je suis)
Terre, substratum élémentaire de toute vie, rien ne donnerait mieux lieu au temps que ta rigidité spatiale. On ne peut être qu’intrigué par l’ambivalence de ta substance, tantôt utérus, tantôt cimetière, bon et mauvais sein, terre sainte ou terre de guerre. C’est dans tes entrailles que mes ténèbres se nichent pour donner sens à l’inconnu, au lointain, à l’inaccessible par la lumière qu’on nomme inconscient.
Intégration, croissance. (Je pense donc j’ai)
Eau, premier vecteur qui pénètre du monde vers l’être, du tout vers l’unité, du sein maternel vers soi, infiltrant les formes jusqu’à leur donner identité. Substance que la matière rêve, miroir fluide où l’on reconnaît sa forme pour la première fois. Tu reflètes les apparences mais tu augmentes aussi les peurs que cachent nos profondeurs, amplifiant le regard que nous portons sur nos abysses, jusqu’à ce qu’elles nous saisissent par leur silence.
Désintégration, apprentissage. (Je pense donc j’ai raison)
Feu, nous ne cesserons jamais de débattre la nature de ta substance, car ton intelligence dépasse la nôtre. Tu ne peux qu’être dérobé à des dieux imaginaires, aux yeux d’un poète ou au cœur d’un amoureux, car tu relèves d’une passion religieuse. Les mouvements calorifiques par lesquels tu animes notre machinerie peuvent être qualifiés d’instinct, car seulement quantifiables par le degré de notre intervention, ton comportement intelligent qui réchauffe, digère et transforme, se transforme en enfer qui brûle, détruit et châtie le meilleur d’entre nous.
Dynamisme, exploration. (Je pense donc l’autre pense aussi)
Air, insaisissable mouvement d’éther, chaque grain de sable, chaque chose sur terre subit ton caractère. Tu sublimes tout ce que tu touches, même les choses les plus abstraites, ces phonèmes qui résonnent de nos bouches ne sont que l’image de ce que tu murmures dans nos têtes. Il n’y a pas de voilier que tu n’aies tenté de voyage, ni de cœur que tu n’aies pas rempli de fougue. Tout se meut à ton gré, car rien n’égale ta frénésie que le vide de ton absence. Orgueil de l’Everest, vertige du derviche, fécondateur des cœurs, nous sommes en vie pour que tu transportes le pollen de nos envies vers un monde plus fertile.
Transcendance, émancipation. (Je suis ce que je pense)
Lumière, ton existence est la preuve même de l’existence, car sans toi les choses resteraient dans l’ombre de ce qu’elles sont. Puissance d’expansion innée de la réalité. C’est par ton pouvoir d’abstraction que nous parviennent les images, les structures spatiales et temporelles. Ta célérité permet à l’esprit de voyager dans le temps, perforer le réel et se mouvoir dans les champs infinis de possibilités. Tu es la quête et le sens de cette transcendance que nous exerçons depuis notre émergence du néant.
Elements. My reservoir is a clay pot fallen from Eden, maelstrom of celestial waters, I breathe the divine, and in my heart burns a star. If there’s a logic to man’s elemental development, it would work its way from the darkness of nothingness to the organicity of the earth, digging down to the magma of creation in the benthic depths, before re-emerging and smoldering on the watery surface in the open air that will evaporate in all directions, sublimating into the luminous quintessence that will reign everywhere. Nothingness, unconsciousness. (Am I ?) Darkness, amnion where I cleansed myself to redeem my ancestors and purify myself of all the sins to be committed after my birth. The boundaries that separate me from the obscure essence that underlies space-time are blurred. I am this darkness, the limits and the shapeless mass that tends to separate itself from them. A counter-will to antimatter, my darkness is the anti-that, my body is the anti-me and my limits are carved like the incisors that bit into the first apple. This pneuma, which leads us from the numinous to the phenomenal, will only provide the human race with a mouth to feed, a heart to suffer, dreams to pursue and a death to achieve. That’s why I’ll live my death like a mouth that’s gorged on dreams, and endure my heart like a suffering well pursued. Gravity, space (I think therefore I am) Earth, elementary substratum of all life, nothing would give place to time better than your spatial rigidity. One can only be intrigued by the ambivalence of your substance, sometimes a womb, others a graveyard, good and bad womb, holy ground or land of war. It’s in your innards that my darkness nestles to make sense of the unknown, the distant, the unreachable by light we call the unconscious. Integration, growth. (I think, therefore I have) Water, first vector that penetrates from world to being, from whole to unity, from mother’s breast to self, infiltrating forms until it gives them identity. Substance that matter dreams, fluid mirror where we recognize our own form for the first time. You reflect appearances, but you also heighten the fears hidden in our depths, amplifying our gaze on our abysses, until they seize us with their silence. Disintegration, learning. (I think, therefore I am right) Fire, we will never cease to debate the nature of your substance, for your intelligence surpasses ours. You can only be stolen from imaginary gods, from the eyes of a poet or the heart of a lover, for you are the object of a religious passion. The calorific movements by which you animate our machinery can be qualified as instinct, because only measurable by the extent of our intervention, your intelligent behavior that warms, digests and transforms, is transformed into a hell that burns, destroys and punishes the best among us. Dynamism, exploration. (I think, so does the other). Air, elusive movement of ether, every grain of sand, every thing on earth undergoes your character. You sublimate everything you touch, even the most abstract things, those phonemes that resound from our mouths are only the image of what you whisper in our heads. There’s no sailboat you haven’t attempted to sail, no heart you haven’t filled with ardor. Everything moves to your will, because nothing matches your frenetic pace like the emptiness of your absence. Pride of the Everest, vertigo of the dervish, fertilizer of hearts, we’re alive so that you can carry the seeds of our desires to a more fertile world.Transcendence, emancipation. (I am what I think) Light, your existence is the very proof of existence, for without you things would remain in the shadow of what they are. Reality’s innate power to expand. It’s through your power of abstraction that images, spatial and temporal structures reach us. Your speed enables the mind to travel through time, perforate the real and move through infinite fields of possibilities. You are the quest and the meaning of the transcendence we have been practicing since our emergence from nowhere.
\ Mohssine Arraji was born in Casablanca and currently lives in Marrakech. His work’s field is children psychiatry, but he is also an extreme sports athlete, and he writes poetry in his spare time \
The Holy Family
I built the Park thinking of myself.
The Casas I created for those who asked – people with faces I can barely recall.
The Church, instead, from the start belonged to God himself, to be an eternal testament of my reverence towards Him: if I made it out of a little Spanish village and up to the walls of the best galleries in Paris, it was He I had to thank for it. Some people, the Almighty gifts with miracles; I was awarded unprecedented talent.
So, when the project was handed to me, I vowed that no other human creation would ever compare to the Church of Barcelona, in greatness or in beauty: the Sagrada Familia would be the House of God.
How, how did I offend You, God? Did I neglect You?
Was I not building You a building greater than all things that roam below You?
Perhaps, did You envy my greatness, fear that my genius might outshadow Yours?
No more Heaven on earth! I want no place in theaters anymore, ceremonies, parties. All of the love that had built up around me, I had to cover in coats of black dirt; until, grave after grave, somewhere along the most silent roads, my soul joined their bodies, scorching the earth. My best friend, my family. My dear dear mother. Until my body was the only thing left above the frail soil.
You’d given me so much! But now, You take from me endlessly.
Did You think that would stop me?
Oh, the Church will see the light of day. My Church will not join the rest of me among the dirt.
The Sagrada Familia will branch out to the clouds, its majesty will awe generations, and Your creations will seem like faint shadows in comparison to its Beauty.
When standing in front of a tomb, only the trees above
can shield the rays of the immortal sun
from me.
My name is Antoni Gaudì y Cornet; this Church is my building, this City my city.
Behold my mortal genius –
One day, I too will stand
In the presence of the Almighty; and He shall greet me as an equal.
\ Chiara Coraglia is a 21-year-old storyteller. Born and raised in Northern Italy, she’s currently collecting tiles to build her own yellow brick road, in the hope of eventually settling in Emerald City. (Should you find yourself in possession of an extra pair of ruby slippers, she’s open to trading them for day-to-day stories or words of advice) \
Periodic table of the elemental
Do you know all of them?
The periodic table of the elements is an organizing icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other sciences. What I really find impressive is that from Mr. Mendeleev first Table of the elements (the end of 1800) until today it changed many times being not fix but “in a continuous evolution”. This illustration focus on this evolution, putting new elements (and a question mark) at the center. What is really essential today for humanity?
\ Francesca De Angelis was born in Parma in 1984. She graduated herself in Foreign Languages at the University of Parma. She deeply trusts interdisciplinarity and lifelong learning. Her interests are languages, theater, architecture and illustration. In 2023 she started to participate in different contests, winning the Poster Art Festival in Parma called Toboga \
Elemental
Elemental is where I feel grounded. It is a cliff, a proposal, it is an early morning or a chair. It is where I dare.
It is when I perceive others by the whole means of me so we can fade together - high in a while. High in a smile.
Elemental is a condition of thought through which any “why questioning” turns into a “because”. It is safe, it is a spouse.
It is admitting I need to need. It is its chemical conversion into clear desire. It is the seed of the wildest fire.
Elemental is to be renovated in a constant fine-tuning like the most precious song, the root of one I belong.
It is the whole beginning as soon as it ends. It is so making sense. It is no defense.
It is open stealth. It is what's left. It is breath.
\ Sara Garagnani is an illustrator and art director based in Bologna (Italy). She handles and develops communication, editorial and other projects including illustrated books, musical projects and animation videos. She has won several awards, including the Gold Award from the Authors of Images association in 2018, and she is part of the performing arts collective Amigdala. She has published several illustrated books and, with the Casa delle Donne contro la violence of Modena, the graphic novel Via del Gambero 77 based on texts by Camilla de Concini. Her latest graphic novel “MOR – Storia per le mie madri” is the winner of the Official Palmarès of Comicon 2023 as Best Italian First Book \
Untitled
Elemental as the clouds, the light, the rain, the fire, the wind shaping the city.
\ LPFM is an alias project I lead aside of my regular activity as freelance designer and illustrator. This project was first based on soundscape works and found a parallel expression into photography. This topographic search is led by mood and abstract narration through absence, traces and transitional spaces and places \
On the concept of elemental in the aesthetic field
In 1975 Fritjof Capra published The Tao of Physics, whose purpose is to prove that there is a substantial harmony between the spirit of Eastern wisdom and the most recent conceptions of the Western science. In the first chapter he says:
[…]the influence of modern physics goes beyond technology; it extends to the realm of thought and culture, where it has determined a profound revision of man’s conception of the universe and of his own relationship with it.
As Capra said Western culture is deeply influenced by developments in science, and it is no coincidence, then, that artists have also introjected such knowledge over time. Artistic research has today a specific focus the natural elements as object of study. In the first essay “On the concept of atmosphere in the aesthetic field” that I wrote for Alfabeto is for, I described Laura Grisi’s research, who enlivens the elements that inhabit our planet. In this essay I want to turn my attention to elements that are the foundation of the biosphere and how artists include them in their works.
For this reason, I start with the concept of holobiont, a concept related to bacteria, viruses, protozoa, unicellular algae, microbes, fungi and germs. A world visible only under the microscope that has fascinated artists for years.
Holobiont
The human body is crowded with millions of billions of microorganisms. They live on the skin, in the mucous membranes and perform important functions. Microbiota is the name given to all our tenants, who reach a number of individual ten times higher than the cells of our organism. In 1991 the microbiologist Lynn Margulis redefined the living organism in the light of coexistence with its own microbiota and coined the term holobiont.
As Margulis demonstrated each eukaryotic organism, that is an organism characterized by more cells that share the same concentrated and separated DNA in a structure, lives in symbiosis with microorganism belonging to the other two biological kingdoms (bacteria and archaea). To this new vision, called “microbiota revolution”, is added the modern paradigm of epigenetics, that ischaracterized by the study of the factors that determine the selective expression of the genetic content.
The holobiont has been defined as “superorganism”. Just as the human body welcomes within it a variegated species of bacteria, so it becomes, on a macro-cosmic level, the host of the earth. Although invisible to our eyes, our microflora has a symbiotic relationship with the interface between our body and the environment. The Holobiont Theory proposes that we examine our relationship with others, understood as the set of natural and unnatural beings.
This kind of relationship has been carefully studied by artists over the year. It is called Hybrid Arts, a contemporary art movement in which artists work with the frontier areas as science and emerging technologies, operating precisely in fields such as biology. This is possible because scientific and technological research plays a central role in contemporary culture. One of the most significant examples is the project proposed by Giulia Tomasello.
(Imm.01)
Future Flora by Giulia Tomasello
The Italian bio-designer Giulia Tomasello (1990) combines in her project more aspects: design, technological innovation and science in order to create tools to empower women. Winner of the STARTS Prize of Ars Electronica for the Artistic Exploration section in 2018, she was able to meet the need for a return to nature and biology and the renewed need for female empowerment that are manifesting in today’s digital society. The project Future Flora (2016) aims to encourage the symbiotic relationship that increases the beneficial presence of microbes and bacteria in the human body, suggesting an alternative: wearing probiotics and keeping our body healthy.
(Imm.02)
In short, it is a kit that helps women to prevent vaginal infections through a bacterial culture grown on a jelly absorbent, the same material used by biologists. The kit includes instructions that women could follow to understand how to grow her own treatment alone; women could insert the pad into the underpants and wear it. In this way the bacterial culture meets the vaginal flora by stimulating the growth of the missing bacteria.
(Imm.02)
Future Flora aims to benefit the symbiotic relationship between bacteria and human body giving women the opportunity to become active participants of their well-being. Thanks to the collaboration with scientists, Giulia Tomasello has been able to implement the elements that are the foundation of our life to give life to constructed elements.
\ Vittoria Mascellaro after she received a degree in Philosophy at Università degli Studi in Milan, she attended a two-year specialisation in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies in NABA. She is currently cultrice della materia Sociology of Art at Accademia di Belle Arti in Catania and she is curating the exhibition project The Rights from Future Generations – A Perspective on (A)rt and (I)nnovation in Monza \
Eupnea
open channel
fresh grains
glide along the decorated
tower walls of my groves;
drifting on a red river
to the mill
and a modest guesthouse,
two-chambered vessel of my soul
deeper and deeper
faster and faster
further and further
and
all the way back
\ Patrycja Holuk was born in Kalisz (Poland), at 14 she moved to Italy with her family. After working as a translator, promoter, gallery assistant and graphic designer, she’s currently writing scripts, working as a photographer and art director. You’ll never know what she’s up to next \
Emerald eyes
Emerald eyes
With its awkwardness smiling chased
Weakening these knees
by those softly gazed
Step by step curiosity awakes
More to explore,
it’s okay to cave
Time spent was a short moment in haze
Little by little
facades fades - connections gains
Memories captured and shared
None of this was in vain
desire for tender touch still remains
Recollecting thoughts in this foggy space
To avoid the souls keepers Hades
Continuing this reluctance charades
None gave in - steadily moving
in this nonchalant pace
Intrigued by these salad days of lust
Dive into togetherness of trust
Ambushed by each other
with a thousand honey kisses
Decreasing self defence.
Remembrance of Shakespeare’s sentence “these violent delights have violent ends”
Tempted by this moment’s delight.
Don’t give a shit for tomorrow night.
Daisies days goes by,
Need not to be defined nor give reasons
or spare conversation
Unexpectedly
smiling face arrises
Affected by this briefly
emerald green surprises.
\ Chollada Phinitduang is a Thai-Norwegian dance artist, performer, and choreographer. Her artistic work defies conventions, exploring body, time, and space boundaries. One of the key aspects of Phinitduang’s practice is her use of poetry as a written approach to choreography, allowing explorations of connections and contrasts between structure, form, rhythm, and emotional depth in both poetry and movement. This lends her art a holistic dimension that appeals to both intellect and emotions \
Nigredo
Va cercata la verità come pietra filosofale,
alchimista della mia realtà biologica trasmuto
il piombo in oro, il processo di nozze e la collimazione
in Rebis. La coesistenza di un principio volatile ed uno
fisso, in un'ottica univoca dove la fluidità dell'essere
è mortificata. Dualismo è dicotomia, ove la rigidità
della scissione rende instabile e truculenta
la sublimazione della materia prima;
l'antagonismo mente-corpo è così tale da soffocare
l'intera esistenza della mia persona.
Dove prevarica una realtà di ossa e pelli,
aderenti involucri di limitazione, di fatica,
di bruttezza e gravezza degli arti,
in una forma pressoché sgradevole ed ingombrante
in vincolo alla trasumanazione della coscienza;
un corpo simile ad una zavorra, d'impedimento
alla prevaricazione umana,
l'impossibilità di congiungere l'essenza astratta
alla bassezza della carne risulta in un animale.
Assecondando i corpi sottili della materia,
la purezza al concepimento delle idee
inviolate, si oppone resistenza alla vita stessa.
Un essere mortale che fonda le proprie radici
in un reame che non gli appartiene, tanto da essere
intangibile per egli; persistere in un compromesso
crea una rottura. Tali scaglie come spine di rovi
gremite le carni, soffrono
fino a spegnersi della loro volontà.
Si biforca, dunque, il dilemma vitale
nell'abbracciare l'inadeguatezza dell'uomo
o nell'abbandonare l'umanità.
Nigredo. Truth must be sought as the philosophical stone, / alchemist of my biological reality I transmute / lead into gold, the alchemical wedding and collimation / into Rebis. The coexistence of a volatile principle and a / fixed one, in an univocal perspective where the fluidity of being / is mortified. Dualism is dichotomy, where the rigidity / of the division makes unstable and truculent / the sublimation of the raw matter; / mind-body antagonism is such as to suppress / the whole existence of my being. / Where a reality of bones and skins prevails, / tight shells of limitation, fatigue, / of ugliness and heaviness of the limbs, / in an almost unpleasant and bulky shape /
in constraint with the transcendence of consciousness; / a body similar to a burden, obstructive to / human prevarication, / the impossibility to connect the abstract essence / to the baseness of the meat results in an animal. /
By favoring the subtle bodies of matter, / the purity at the conception of ideas / untouched, we resists life itself. / A mortal being who has his roots / in a realm that does not belong to him, so to be / intangible to him; to persist in a compromise / creates a break. Such scales as bramble thorns /
filled the flesh, it suffers / until its will is extinguished. / It forks, therefore, the vital dilemma / in embracing the man’s inadequacy / or in giving up humanity.
\ Sesso Nullo is a poetry project born from the necessity of a young queer artist to express his feelings about how’s living as a trans and queer person in a society that tries in every way to nullify your existence. Being a nullo is a condition that you can’t escape, where gender is only a performance that nobody seems to master and the rigid binarism appears to fall apart. Since writing is used as a therapeutic tool, most of his works have an autobiographical core \
Never Gone and Always There
Matter, particles, reactions
Moulded and processed, in the masses, they make all that lives and our homes – the living things themselves. The spaces we occupy and the architectures that nature and animals manifest in order to survive and multiply.
Impressions, interconnectivity, presence
Existentially wavering, subdued by an overwhelming amount of information. The elemental parts of our world are gently ignored. A labyrinth of systems and concepts subdue a pure consciousness, controlling our actions and forming our perceptions.
Passing, decay, transformation
A gentle Texan wind blows dust into my eyes. I feel the minerals in the sand stain and dry my eyes. I close them. I inhale and exhale – slowly and deeply. Lengthy, exposed electric cables swaying above me are hot in the sun, its rubber coating melting into concrete columns, carried out for miles.
Where do they go?
When do they end?
There will always be a rebirth, and the elements will remain as they always were, in different forms and constellations, colliding with one another in constant transformation.
\ Eline Verhoeven (director at nok) \
alfabèto 