40 Giorni e 40 Notti a Montecristo

40 Days on Montecristo
2012 - 2014

"Dreaming of islands, be it distressing or joyful, means dreaming of separation, being already separated, far away from continents, being alone and lost – or else dreaming of starting from scratch, recreating, beginning anew."

Gilles Deleuze, Cause et raison des îles désertes

The work 40 Days and 40 Nights on Montecristo stems from an art residency I spent in summer 2012 on one of the most inhospitable islands that exist, for which reason it has come to be synonymous with remoteness in our imagination. The pictures deriving from it seamlessly mingle moments of improbable reality with others that look real but are actually artificial. During my Days on Montecristo, like a castaway on a desert island, I explored an unknown world, armed only with a instant camera and expired film, capturing timeless fragments of experience. Cut-out shapes against a blinding sky, my own body silhouetted against a piece of granite like some dim primeval rock painting, and mysterious icons resembling fossils fixed by fire. Instances of the eternal play of light and shade.

40 Nights on Montecristo
2012 - 2013

40 Nights on Montecristo tells of a night-time trek from sea level up to the highest peak of the island, a sequence of real shots transformed into metaphysical visions. Such ‘phosphenes’ – retina impressions of surroundings perceived with the eyes tight shut – are the last lingerings of an image before it vanishes for ever. A universe of light and dark, where representation of the landscape reduces to a zero degree angle, and faint starlight determines the shape of objects in negative. Such was my experience of that cosmos of distance. I found myself plunged into an age-old dimension where I couldn’t tell dream from reality.