The Zone of Howling Parallels
Florilegium of Non-Cartographic Representations of Space
|
Ongoing PhD Practice-Based Research
in affiliation with Brera Academy / MA*GA Museum
Presentation
|
INTRODUCTION
Developed within the PhD program at the Brera Academy in collaboration with the MA*GA Museum and funded by a scholarship awarded in December 2024, this artistic research investigates the intersection of imaginative processes, geographical knowledge, and historical post-production within an interdisciplinary framework. At the heart of this project is The Zone of Howling Parallels (ZHP), a collection of textual and visual essays based on real and speculative historical documents, dissolving boundaries between reality and fiction. These narratives describe a series of spatial relationships that cultures across epochs have established with their environment through the creation of manifold visual, acoustic, and gestural strategies. By approaching geography as a privileged realm, the research reflects on the transformative role of creativity and poetic imagination in interacting with, understanding, and shaping our world. The title of this research draws inspiration from the navigators' designation of a zone between the 40° and 60° parallels, where converging winds generate a powerful, scream-like sound, while also recalling Leo Lionni’s Botanica Parallela, a speculative tale of imaginary vegetal life. Both references highlight the space between reality and imagination, where boundaries blur, and unexpected connections emerge. This conceptual foundation underscores the project's aim to explore how such imagined spaces are constructed, traversed, and interpreted, not just through geographical knowledge, but also through poetic and creative processes. This research proposal emerges from a reflection matured throughout my artistic and teaching career, particularly linked to the cognitive and phenomenological aspects of the creative process. Over the years, I have undertaken long-term projects in China, South America, Russia, and the Middle East, where poetic explorations have been shaped through an open-ended process of study, connection, and intertwining of heterogeneous materials. This methodology aims to investigate the philosophical and symbolic content of images that bind distant geographies and cultures across time and space. Through exploring analogies between interdisciplinary territories and integrating multiple expressive languages, my practice has oriented itself toward the creation of immersive environments that, by combining theoretical and formal research, serve as cultural devices for imaginative knowledge. METHODOLOGY The ZHP narratives are driven by an 'Apophenic Methodology,' a research approach refined over years of practice. This method is grounded in stimulating and identifying connections among diverse studies, materials, and sources, using associative thinking and serendipity to transform rhizomatic correspondence into research instruments. Through the collection, reorganization, and interweaving of archives, documents, and theories, this process fosters a continuous dialogue between rational and intuitive thinking, transforming the method into a dynamic tool for discovery by allowing unexpected meanings and visions to emerge spontaneously. |
OBJECT OF RESEARCH
The research intersects art, cultural studies, and cognitive sciences to explore the mental dynamics involved in constructing complex imaginaries through the creative potential of archives. Here, the archive—both physical and digital—is conceived not only as a critical repository of historical memory but as a dynamic, reinterpretable, and manipulable source that fuels artistic creation by transforming content into new contexts and endowing it with new meanings. The study also investigates how this exploration within the "mental laboratory" of artists can be applied in educational and outreach contexts, enriching debates on learning, comprehension, and critical reflection within cultural practices. Rather than dissecting one of the most intimate and ephemeral dimensions—the creative process—this research aims to amplify its inherent mystery, emphasizing the role of imagination as a tool for knowledge and fostering interdisciplinary reflections on visual culture. INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS Given its interdisciplinary nature, each "geographical moment" within the ZHP project will be constructed using a broad spectrum of knowledge from various disciplines, fostering an exchange with experts from different research areas who will act as scientific consultants. The project also aims to consolidate collaborations with institutions with which I have previously worked, such as the Warburg Institute in London and the Belgian interfaculty center KADOC, and to establish new partnerships with archives from other institutions relevant to the project’s development. RESEARCH RESIDENCY WITH A.I.R. An initial phase of the project will be launched through a remote residency in the United States (September - December 2024) in collaboration with A.I.R., the largest global repository of Stable Diffusion models and AI-generated imagery. During this online residency, which concludes in December, the creation of an iconographic archive processed through multiple aesthetic styles will be explored in synergy with the technical staff, forming the foundation of the work. CONCLUSION Ultimately, this research seeks to intertwine various lines of inquiry into a unified framework combining artistic practice and theoretical reflection. The objective is to explore artistic practice as a research tool, conceive the archive as a dynamic creative device, deepen interdisciplinary studies on spatial cognition, and experiment with fictional narratives as instruments of critical reflection. By adopting this approach, the research aims to foster a deeper understanding of the creative act, demonstrating how it serves as a vehicle for discovery, knowledge, and contemplation. Before being merely communicative or representative, artistic practice should serve as a means of nourishing the artist during their personal cognitive journey. |
Visual studies related to the Narrative Figurative Program of ZHP
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bachelard, G. - La Poetica dello Spazio, Torino: Edizioni di Comunità, 1958
Bateson, G. - Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, Hampton Press, 2002 (orig. 1979)
Borges, J. L. - Atlante, 1984
Bourriaud, N. - Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World, Lukas & Sternberg, 2002
Calasso, R. - Come ordinare una biblioteca, Adelphi, 2015
Calvino, I. - T con zero, Mondadori, 1967
Campagna, F. - Magia e Tecnica, Edizioni Tlon, 2021
Casey, E. S. - Imagining: A Phenomenological Study, Indiana University Press, 1976
Chatwin, B. - Le vie dei canti, Adelphi, 1990
Cheng, I. - FareMondi, Timeo, 2021
Coomaraswamy, A. K. - La trasfigurazione della natura nell’arte, Abscondita, 2000
Corbin, H. - L’immaginazione creatrice. Le radici del sufismo, Laterza, 2005
Damasio, A. - Lo strano ordine delle cose, Adelphi, 2018
De Santillana, G. - Le origini del pensiero scientifico, Adelphi, 1991
Deleuze, G., Guattari, F. - Mille piani. Capitalismo e schizofrenia, Orthotes, 1980
Derrida, J. - Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, 1995
Dewey, J. - Art as Experience, Minton, Balch & Company, 1934
Didi-Huberman, G. - La conoscenza accidentale, Bollati e Bolinghieri, 2006
Dissanayake, E. - What Is Art For?, University of Washington Press, 1988
Durkheim, É., Mauss, M. - Primitive Classification, University of Chicago Press, 1963 (orig. 1903)
Eliade, M. - Immagini e simboli. Saggi sul simbolismo magico-religioso, Jaca Book, 2015
Farinelli, F. - Geografia. Un'introduzione ai modelli del mondo, Einaudi, 2003
Florenskij, P. - Lo spazio e il tempo nell’arte, Adelphi, 2002
Fontcuberta, J. - La furia delle immagini, Einaudi, 2018
Foucault, M. - The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969
Franz von, M.-L. - Alchemical Active Imagination, Shambhala, 2017
Gell, A. - Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Clarendon Press, 1998
Glages, L. - La realtà delle immagini, Marinotti Edizioni, 2004
Goethe, J. W. - La metamorfosi delle piante, Guanda, 1989
Gould, P., White, R. - Mental Maps, Penguin Books, 1974
Guénon, R. - Il regno della quantità e i segni dei tempi, Adelphi, 2002
Heesen, A. te - The Newspaper Clipping: A Modern Paper Object, Manchester University Press, 2014
Hofstadter, D. - Gödel, Escher, Bach: Un'eterna Ghirlanda Brillante, Adelphi, 1979
Ingold, T. - The Life of Lines, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2015
Jakob, M. - Il paesaggio, Il Mulino, 2005
Jung, C. G. - La Sincronicità, Bollati e Bolinghieri, 2004
Julien, F. - Vivere di paesaggio, Mimesis Edizioni, 2012
Kerényi, K. - Nel Labirinto, Bollati e Bolinghieri, 2006
Lionni, L. - La botanica parallela, Adelphi, 1983
Lima, M. - Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information, Princeton Press, 2011
Malpas, J. - Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography, Cambridge University Press, 1999
Meschiari, M. - Neogeografia, Milieu, 2014
Mithen, S. - The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science, Thames & Hudson, 1996
Mitchell, W. J. T. - Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, University of Chicago Press, 1986
Modell, A. H. - The Transitional Object and the Creative Act (Imagination and the Meaningful Brain), MIT Press, 2003
Morin, E. - La sfida della complessità, Le Lettere, 2004
Morton, T. - Iperoggetti, Not, 2018
Negarestani, R. - Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, re.press, 2008
Papapetros, S. - On the Animation of the Inorganic: Art, Architecture, and the Extension of Life, The University of Chicago Press, 2012
Rosenberg, D., Grafton, A. - Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline, Princeton Architectural Press, 2012
Sartre, J.-P. (rev. by A. Elkaim-Sartre) - The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination, Taylor & Francis, 2004
Scafi, A. - Alla scoperta del paradiso. Un atlante del cielo sulla terra, Sellerio Editore Palermo, 2006
Sebald, W. G. - Gli anelli di Saturno, Adelphi, 1995
Sekula, A. - The Body and the Archive, The MIT Press, 1986
Turner, M. - The Origin of Ideas: Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark, Oxford University Press, 2014
Vernadskij, V. - La biosfera, Red Edizioni, 2018
Warburg, A. - Il rituale del serpente, Adelphi, 2006
Wesseling, J. - See it again. Say it again. The artist as researcher, Mondrian Foundation, 2011
Bateson, G. - Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, Hampton Press, 2002 (orig. 1979)
Borges, J. L. - Atlante, 1984
Bourriaud, N. - Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World, Lukas & Sternberg, 2002
Calasso, R. - Come ordinare una biblioteca, Adelphi, 2015
Calvino, I. - T con zero, Mondadori, 1967
Campagna, F. - Magia e Tecnica, Edizioni Tlon, 2021
Casey, E. S. - Imagining: A Phenomenological Study, Indiana University Press, 1976
Chatwin, B. - Le vie dei canti, Adelphi, 1990
Cheng, I. - FareMondi, Timeo, 2021
Coomaraswamy, A. K. - La trasfigurazione della natura nell’arte, Abscondita, 2000
Corbin, H. - L’immaginazione creatrice. Le radici del sufismo, Laterza, 2005
Damasio, A. - Lo strano ordine delle cose, Adelphi, 2018
De Santillana, G. - Le origini del pensiero scientifico, Adelphi, 1991
Deleuze, G., Guattari, F. - Mille piani. Capitalismo e schizofrenia, Orthotes, 1980
Derrida, J. - Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, 1995
Dewey, J. - Art as Experience, Minton, Balch & Company, 1934
Didi-Huberman, G. - La conoscenza accidentale, Bollati e Bolinghieri, 2006
Dissanayake, E. - What Is Art For?, University of Washington Press, 1988
Durkheim, É., Mauss, M. - Primitive Classification, University of Chicago Press, 1963 (orig. 1903)
Eliade, M. - Immagini e simboli. Saggi sul simbolismo magico-religioso, Jaca Book, 2015
Farinelli, F. - Geografia. Un'introduzione ai modelli del mondo, Einaudi, 2003
Florenskij, P. - Lo spazio e il tempo nell’arte, Adelphi, 2002
Fontcuberta, J. - La furia delle immagini, Einaudi, 2018
Foucault, M. - The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969
Franz von, M.-L. - Alchemical Active Imagination, Shambhala, 2017
Gell, A. - Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Clarendon Press, 1998
Glages, L. - La realtà delle immagini, Marinotti Edizioni, 2004
Goethe, J. W. - La metamorfosi delle piante, Guanda, 1989
Gould, P., White, R. - Mental Maps, Penguin Books, 1974
Guénon, R. - Il regno della quantità e i segni dei tempi, Adelphi, 2002
Heesen, A. te - The Newspaper Clipping: A Modern Paper Object, Manchester University Press, 2014
Hofstadter, D. - Gödel, Escher, Bach: Un'eterna Ghirlanda Brillante, Adelphi, 1979
Ingold, T. - The Life of Lines, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2015
Jakob, M. - Il paesaggio, Il Mulino, 2005
Jung, C. G. - La Sincronicità, Bollati e Bolinghieri, 2004
Julien, F. - Vivere di paesaggio, Mimesis Edizioni, 2012
Kerényi, K. - Nel Labirinto, Bollati e Bolinghieri, 2006
Lionni, L. - La botanica parallela, Adelphi, 1983
Lima, M. - Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information, Princeton Press, 2011
Malpas, J. - Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography, Cambridge University Press, 1999
Meschiari, M. - Neogeografia, Milieu, 2014
Mithen, S. - The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science, Thames & Hudson, 1996
Mitchell, W. J. T. - Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, University of Chicago Press, 1986
Modell, A. H. - The Transitional Object and the Creative Act (Imagination and the Meaningful Brain), MIT Press, 2003
Morin, E. - La sfida della complessità, Le Lettere, 2004
Morton, T. - Iperoggetti, Not, 2018
Negarestani, R. - Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, re.press, 2008
Papapetros, S. - On the Animation of the Inorganic: Art, Architecture, and the Extension of Life, The University of Chicago Press, 2012
Rosenberg, D., Grafton, A. - Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline, Princeton Architectural Press, 2012
Sartre, J.-P. (rev. by A. Elkaim-Sartre) - The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination, Taylor & Francis, 2004
Scafi, A. - Alla scoperta del paradiso. Un atlante del cielo sulla terra, Sellerio Editore Palermo, 2006
Sebald, W. G. - Gli anelli di Saturno, Adelphi, 1995
Sekula, A. - The Body and the Archive, The MIT Press, 1986
Turner, M. - The Origin of Ideas: Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark, Oxford University Press, 2014
Vernadskij, V. - La biosfera, Red Edizioni, 2018
Warburg, A. - Il rituale del serpente, Adelphi, 2006
Wesseling, J. - See it again. Say it again. The artist as researcher, Mondrian Foundation, 2011