WE WERE HERE

Description of the project:

The main questions

I

• What are the signs that people leave on the street?
• How can a person leave a sign of his presence in a certain place?
• How can I, as an artist, leave my trace (show my path) by finding these signs?

II

• Can business cards or advertising cards thrown on the street be considered as signs or as the presence of people in these places?
• What do these cards say? And why were they left?
• Can we also consider them as memories?

Main concepts of the project:

• Photographic trace-imprint (physicality of the image);
• mark/leave a trace;
• Representation of something;

The trace implies:

• The movement of the body in the space of the eyes/thought;

A path:

• Visual/spatial/mental/conceptual;

Trend and Speed:

• Follow the path of mental circuits to connect points in space and time;

Magic item:

•    Establishes relationships, develops the story, has a narrative function;

The signs of the people (the notes)  →    They are the magical objects   →     that establish the relationship between the artist (me) and the people     →   have a narrative function   →     they narrate memories, life, the presence of the people in the moment in which these notes were thrown away.

Tickets, in reality, are the objects that have been thrown away because they are not interesting. Now, however, they become objects of interest and magic, which have memories, memories and the presence of people within them.  

WE WERE HERE is a work that has different dimensions:

•  A work on the track (route);   
•  A work on memories, signs and presences of people;   
• A collective work that interacts with people (indirectly) who have an important role in building the work; 

The connections of the project with the agency: Italo Calvino talks about a vector of transformation in American Lectures; passage from one form to another – transformation through action – a sort of co-creation;

Agency: building your own identity – giving substance to desire – abandoning all limits and boundaries;

Project installation:

A room with white walls and a white roof. A personal map of the artist is projected on the floor on which one can follow his journey through the city. On the map there are transparent jars containing shredded paper. They are notes destroyed with a document shredder: looking for a passage from one form to another, the jars contain what was found scattered on the ground, in the city, in the points where the jars themselves are placed on the map.At the back of the room there is a white table with a document shredder, a box (with the artist’s writings and project notebooks inside) and a radio.Spectators, upon entering the room, are the first to see the writing “WE WERE HERE” (title of the project) positioned on the ground on the map. They start walking, see the jars and can open them; they hear audio coming from the radio with noises and its recordings in the street.