21 Oct 2008

Sarah Ciracì - think fuzzy - Blindarte contemporanea

Blindarte contemporanea is glad to announce the second solo exhibition of Sarah Ciracì curated by Camilla Pignatta Morano from October 25 2008 until January 9 2009. Opening October 24 7pm.

Text by Camilla PIGNATTI MORANO

think fuzzy

Sarah Ciracì's nebulous sets

Blindarte features think fuzzy, an exhibition of photographs and one installation by Sarah Ciracì highlighting the relationships between brain, artificial intelligence and mysticism whose boundaries are often blurry. think fuzzy is a guided tour to a world where, Ciracì says, 'humans look more and more like machines and machines look more and more like humans' *, i.e. today's world. In Ciracì's vision, reality is a set of layers, of 'folds' as Gilles Deleuze ** would put it. This notion of a stratified reality belongs to the language of the artist who enters complex and convoluted organs and circuits and explores in deep all their microcosms. The artist is intrigued by realities which are hidden or seemingly unknowable. She studies their origins searching for mysterious information in libraries, in scientific laboratories, at the NASA, or simply by collecting extraordinary stories reported by ordinary people. Ciracì's works presented at think fuzzy result from the compliance with deregulated rules.

The artist studies some applications of fuzzy logics, probing into scenarios where man has no control on machines nor on himself. In the past, machines would exclusively obey to precise codes: after software has been installed by man, machines would execute the commands given. Ritratto di Umanoide (iCUB), 2008, is the portrait of a modern robot. Actually iCUB - this is the name of the child robot - is not a mere robot ***; it is a little humanoid who is going through a process of growth, equipped with an 'intelligent' software that allows to acquire knowledge over time, via its contact with humans. The humanoid will go through a long period of learning and produce its own knowledge, a quality totally unknown to robots so far. But Ciracì does not only take a snapshot of the humanoid robot; she complicates its reading by projecting it into the future, using elements of contemporary design and some structural features of old-style portraits. Ritratto di Umanoide (iCUB)brings us back to the time when, in Renaissance portraits, children of noble families would be represented in all their glory. In richly-furnished rooms, usually salons of the family house, the children in the past would be dressed up and accompanied by their pets, dogs or monkeys, symbols of wealth, fortune and high social status. iCUB is a modern child instead, a robot with a human dignity in a historical and extravagant context, and its futuristic portrait reveals the incredible changes that are going on. The world is changing and Ciracì imagines what next future will look like: a future where humanoid robots are able to feel and give emotions.

In representing a possible future and the obscure realities of the present, the artist does not give up her scientific and biological research and, looking at the world of humans, she conceives a huge brain with all its astonishing complexities. Un oscuro scrutare (2008), title borrowed by A Scanner Darkly, a science fiction book by Philip K. Dick, is an enigmatic and evocative installation which draws viewers to a universe that, though near it may seem, is remote and obscure as the human brain. Flash-lights, pulsations, rhythms alternatively highlight parts of the brain with all their stratifications and overlapping loops, reminding us of how obscure and mysterious its function is. Ciracì's mandalas are also cryptic and seductive; a world reproduced to connect canny and uncanny. The artist is attracted by anything is magically convoluted. She imagines diverse mandalas conceived as large electric circuits thought as an actual mystic circuit. Elettronica-mente (2008) is made up of several elements, waves and particles the size of 1 or few millimetres. The structure of Elettronica-mente is actually made up of real electric circuits like those of mobile phones, television sets, and even video-poker machines. The artist is focused on the structural and functional component of technology and is not interested in the aesthetic dimension. In Neural Network (2008) the artist refers to the brain neurons and conceives her mandala as a large web irradiating multiple neural information.

Ciracì has always shown an almost obsessive interest in natural, mystic, divine and historical symbols as proven by her reference in the past to The Large Glass by Marcel Duchamp, a work that, like Ciracì's, contains within itself the mystery of reality.


* Sarah Ciracì in a conversation with the author – Oct 8th 2008.
** Gilles Deleuze, 'Le pli, Leibniz et le baroque', Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1988
*** http://www.robotcub.org/


Biographical notes:

Born in Grottaglie (Italy) in 1972 Sarah Ciracì lives and works between Milan and New York. Winner of the New York Prize in 2003-2004 and of the Primo Premio Corso superiore di Arti Visive Fondazione Ratti in 1995, the artist has exhibited in numerous public spaces and galleries nationally and internationally. Between the exhibitions: Oh my God is full of stars, (curated by Katerina Gregos) MACRO, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma; Tangent, (curated by Kondo Yuki) ACAC, Aomori, Japan; Polyphony-Emerging Resonances (curated by Yuko Hasegawa), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Animations (curated by C. Christov-Bakargiev, L. Harris), Kunst- werke, Berlin, Campo 6 (curated by F. Bonami), Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Torino; Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Olanda and others. The artist has already exhibited in the gallery in 2006 with the solo show Ying Yang Bang.