Aquarium

Video installation

Plexiglass, 60 cm x 40 cm x 35 cm

Video on loop, 2.04 minutes

2019

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The video appears to be a collage of aerial views of the ruins of ancient Rome, to which reproductions of schools of fishhave been superimposed. 

Italy, like most European countries, is characterized by a thousandyears cultural stratification. A stratification, that in the city of Rome, reaches the maximum example and that can be easily recognizable in all neighborhoods of the eternal city, where styles/ architectures of different historical periods overlap and reach a full osmosis.

The contemporary era is characterized by the phenomenon of Overtourism, or a way of traveling which tends to assault and devour all the principal historical places without understanding them in depth, and in which the subtle essence of a true understanding of the historical memory of a place remains secondary. Rome and his "Ruins" are consequently, for most visitors, a simple scenic landscape.

Understand an "ancient" culture is no longer a priority, visitors want to be entertained.

In Aquarium the ruins are no longer conceived as a symbol of the grandeur of ancient culture of the city of Rome, but as a mere "spectacular" backdrop, in which digital fish find their ideal habitat and interact freely with the ruins.