Installazione audio-video, Dimensione ambiente
Quest’opera audiovisiva rappresenta il nostro percorso di ricerca nel campo delle installazioni artistiche. Realizzata per l'evento d'arte contemporanea *Cazzotto* (Perugia, maggio 2019), è un'opera site-specific che prende vita da un ristorante dismesso, abbandonato da anni. Abbiamo documentato l'ambiente con foto e video, successivamente elaborati e integrati nell’installazione, composta da tre piccoli televisori VCR incastonati in un muro. L'audio, distinto per ogni video, è un mix di suoni naturali e rumori ambientali, come fuoco, aria e pioggia, registrati sul posto per evocare l’atmosfera desolata e decadente di quel luogo. L'opera mira a trasmettere visioni e suggestioni dell’abbandono.
Definition
The verb “to combine” is used in various expressions that have contrasting meanings. On one hand, we can combine messes due to a lack of attention, which implies the freedom not to give the right weight to the action we are undertaking. On the other hand, for a mechanism to function, it is essential that its gears combine in a binding manner to prevent everything from jamming. If we can combine a marriage by forcing two people, who may not even know each other, to share their lives together, it is a pure combination when chance presents us with fortuitous or unexpected situations. These are just a few examples, but they are very useful in illustrating how this word can express itself and take on connotations in an endless series of combinations.
The Treccani Dictionary tells us that "to combine" (N1) derives from late Latin, where the prefix com joins the term bini, meaning "two by two." It is a transitive verb that means to bring together, to merge two or more things so that a given effect results in achieving a specific outcome. The act of combining can also have a figurative connotation, as it is not only possible to combine objects from the phenomenal reality but also ideas, images, and thoughts.
The adjective derived from it, combinatorial (N2), lends itself to an even more complex and nuanced definition. When defined as the result of combining various elements, we see how it is applied to different fields of knowledge.
In philosophy, it refers to an imagined science, conceived in the Middle Ages by Ramón Llull and later taken up in the modern age by Leibniz, aimed at realising all possible combinations, both numerical and conceptual, with the goal of deriving a rigorous, secure, and practical reasoning system through unique symbols that would allow it to systematise every type of knowledge and experience.
In modern mathematics, the concept of combinatorial is associated with set theory and calculus. For the latter, it represents the study of applications of their ordering; in analysis, it is that part of arithmetic that intends to count the various types of groupings that can be formed with given objects or symbols. The contribution of combinatorial calculus to computer science is of paramount importance, as it is through this that the first computers were created, enabling us to index and optimise the organisation of information today. Topology, or the morphological study of landscapes, also utilises the term combinatorial to divide continuous surfaces into finite elements.
In linguistics, combinatorial analysis comes into play under various analytical aspects, such as how sounds come together to form categories of meaning and the interpretation of spoken chains that identify sound units and their behaviours arising from their interactions. The philological combinatorial method allows researchers in the field to identify the correct interpretations of what they analyse based on the comparison of multiple related elements. In literature, combinatorial play becomes both a stimulus and a symbol of a literary genre peculiar to OuLiPo, which emerged in the 1960s.
From these simple definitions, it is evident how this term and the concept it expresses can be applied to a long series of fields of human knowledge, as our ever-expanding understanding leads us to a growing possibility of finding ways to unite and relate what we have before us in infinite combinations. But is it possible to apply the combinatorial principle to combinatorics itself? Can all these essences be united into one? And, finally, are we able to conceive everything around us as a unique entity?
The life of contemporary humans is filled with objects and machinery that combine different elements to provide us with a more easily accessible reality. From the most common household appliances that are enriched daily with new technologies to the most sophisticated systems that help us observe the micro and macroscopic reality. Thanks to this vast sea of advanced tools, each of us can produce a wide range of virtual objects, the totality of which gives life to everything that can be found daily on the internet, considered the richest database of information in human history. In this context, the greatest challenge of contemporary times is precisely to find a combinatory approach that can help us navigate our research and choices, through qualitative and quantitative methods that do not limit the intellectual space in which we operate.