Fronteggiarsi (videocamere)
Face to face (surveillance cameras)Two channel live-streamed video installation, color/sound, performance, variable length
2026
Fronteggiarsi (videocamere) investigates the fragmentation of the collective body and the possibility of suturing this fracture through the voice: in light of the widespread diffusion of video surveillance systems, it has become more necessary than ever to identify zones of shadow capable of offering shelter to this total gaze.
Two screens installed at opposite corners of the exhibition space display two distinct live-stream video channels. The first shows footage captured by a camera inside the gallery, portraying visitors within the exhibition room; the second is remotely connected to a performer moving through the city of Padova. Acting as an observer who reveals but does not reveal himself, the performer drifts through urban space, tracing a map of the city’s surveillance network: the increase or decrease of these devices depending on the area thus appears as a symptom of a structural fragility that such instruments cannot resolve. At the same time, by being able to observe the exhibition visitors remotely without being seen by them, the performer establishes a renewed asymmetry of the gaze – literally imposed from above.
The only means available to the external observer to establish direct contact with those inside the exhibition is his voice: through the sound system, he can speak to the visitors and build with them a whispered and surreptitious conversation in which only those physically present can take part. Addressing them, he points out his ability to see and its pervasiveness, while simultaneously recounting stories of collective mobilization and urban guerrilla practices, blending reality and fiction in order to make room for a dissident imagination; where the claim to reality collapses, its prefiguration allows public space – and the ways in which we move through it – to be reimagined in advance.