Alessandro Caruana
My sculpture aspires to analyse the inescapable human condition, in which every single individual is perpetually subjugated to the other, through a psychoanalytical and philosophical lens.
Porcelain is the perfect medium for representing the bodies in my concept. Its delicacy superbly resembles the skin’s features; in respect to this similitude, the sculptures are fired only once in pursuance to preserve the paleness of a vague flesh tone. No glazing technique is used as the velvety flesh-skin is wanted to be left exposed to the external instances that progressively stain it, inducing the candour to become filthy. There is an idea of organic, of living, in the innards of the modelled shape. The sculptures, once fired, can be considered as finite objects already, but with clearer insight, they are only at the outset of a more profound process.
Thus, they must be considered as fragments of a broader structure. Every single piece, through 3D scanning, is then relocated in a digital space in which the software’s algorithms intervene in the process, by reconstructing and conferring a different form but still maintaining the overall shape intact.
The result is a super-structure, obtained by merging each unique system, thus devising a new whole single object. The 3D printing, the last stage, intends to restore the materiality as the sculpture cannot be preserved in the digital space once the machine’s manipulation occurs; it is a conceptual requirement that always imply a progression, a metamorphosis.
It is required to re-establish the object in the organic space. The viewer is brought to reflect upon the intricate mass of bodies and the implicit loss of individuality that every single sculpture merged have suffered. The process, as continuous transformation, has to be considered an integral part of the artwork located on the tension line that divides “What is innate” and “What is constructed” aiming to destabilise the viewer.