Metal dreams by Antonio Castronovo

 

In the biography of Tommaso Ragnisco, one episode stands out: as a student of Industrial Design, he arrived at his graduation thesis with a spaceship project. Nothing special, one might say — yet something does not quite add up. A typical student of that discipline would focus on a tool, an object of everyday life, in order to make a fragment of daily existence more agreeable.

Ragnisco, instead, did not. For him, Industrial Design also means creating an articulated, complex machine, firmly produced by the workshop of imagination and entrusted to the realm of dreams (“if I were to describe myself, I would say that I deal with dreaming,” he confesses, thus revealing his most intimate côté). In this fact alone, an entire personality already emerges. There is an inclination to glide over the surface of technique, doing so with the tenderness of illusion, with chimerical ingenuity. It then emerges that afterwards, having graduated in fantasy, Ragnisco worked (and still works) with short films, theatrical stage machines, special effects, et similia.

All these elements are preparatory in helping us to properly engage with the anthropomorphic machines of his collection "Portraits of Robots", a felicitous fusion of Renaissance ornamentation and futuristic fantasy. Observing them, I wondered from which mental fold they might originate, and I concluded that it is the same one I explored when I set out to narrate, through a purely literary operation, the Fantastic Machines (Stampa Alternativa): the mental fold that considers every machine a product of imagination even before one of functional aptitude.

The first thing that strikes the eye is that these robots are animated by a fleshy detail: those lip-cheeks that are not an intrinsic part of the mechanical structure. They are merely placed upon it. If we are seized by the suspicion that these machines might be cyborgs, we are mistaken: true cyborgs respect a different balance, with many human parts and few metallic ones; here, instead, apart from the fleshy lips, everything else is machine.

 

What stand out are the long, feminine metal necks, hinged into jaws of alluring titanium, and below they widen into unripe breasts which, protected by arabesque fabrics, allude to a lunar, silvery femininity. The metallic hairstyle of the creature Reflected Thought ripples into a pataphysical motif, the gidouille that curls upon the belly of Ubu Re. But this is the sole, unconscious concession to humour: the eyes return to metallic seriousness — the enormous eyes of a bee, though icily smooth and without ocelli — an archaic dream of a wasp that continues through the well-distributed anatomical masses of Maternal Thought.

Thus, machines into which Ragnisco has infused his own dream: machines that have now become human, and that suffer like the First man crucified.

Machines that echo the dream once dreamt by the author when he faced his graduation examination with a spaceship, now transfigured into the Monad, hovering as it dominates a green nature devoid of men of flesh — a livid vision of an empty world that had already passed through the mind of Leopardi.

 

An empty world in which the red orbits, alive and flickering, of Ragnisco’s creatures are ignited.

 

Antonio Castronovo

 

Presentation text written on the occasion of the exhibition (and its related catalogue) by Tommaso Ragnisco, Antropolis Portraits of Robots, curated by Ginevra Bentivoglio

Rome, Ginevra Bentivoglio EditoriA

22 October – 8 November 2009.

 

 

Trust in Machines by Daniele Ferrara

 

These portraits of robots bring to painting an intense creative and technical practice that Tommaso Ragnisco has long pursued in the fields of special effects, stage machinery, automata, and other forms of inventive “diablerie.” Over time, this practice has found application across a wide range of artistic and communicative contexts, from theatrical and cinematic scenography to museum education and advertising.

A constant across the various domains of Ragnisco’s production—he can rightly be described as an artefice, given his technical versatility—is the imagining of a humanity composed of fantastic creatures and man-machines. In this body of work, such figures are brought to life through the expressive codes of the great tradition of portraiture.

The works depict “beings” that are perfect and elegant in their forms, materials, mechanisms, and ornamental details, yet marked by an unsettling expression. The deliberate use of compositions, models, and costumes drawn from the Italian Renaissance serves to convey the “particular beauty” of these figures, whose faces confront the viewer with the “marvelous monstrosity” of their internal mechanisms. The characters—together with representations of cities, anthropomorphic and architectural creatures (in a continuous reversal of classical canons), and mysterious objects—do not invite new surreal interpretations; they are not a contemporary revival of metaphysical mannequins; nor do they celebrate the civilization of machines or present themselves as images suspended between magic and science fiction.

These subjects could, in principle, be physically constructed and animated by Ragnisco. Instead, fixed within a classical mode of representation—complete with the customary attributes of human social life and habitat, such as opulent garments and varied landscapes—they are stripped bare through the explicit display of their mechanisms.

 

Through portraiture, the robots are revealed and affirmed as such, becoming metaphors for the dignity of the machine itself. They position themselves against the enduring, centuries-old myth of the automaton as an imitation of man, while simultaneously suggesting that the machine is not merely a container of circuits and mechanical parts.

 

Ragnisco’s work appears to express a deep trust in human ingenuity as the source of machine creation. As a skilled artefice—and the term is used here in its older sense, implying both technical mastery and an equilibrium between conception and execution, in contrast to many contemporary artists—he is fully aware that technique opens vast and unpredictable fields of expression. It may seem obvious to invoke Blade Runner, yet it is difficult not to do so: from his own distinctive perspective, Ragnisco suggests that what a machine ultimately becomes, and the benefits it may yield, depend on what human beings—and their inner life—are capable of imparting to it.

 

Daniele Ferrara

 

Critical essay written on the occasion of the exhibition (and its related catalogue) by Tommaso Ragnisco, Antropolis Portraits of Robots, curated by Ginevra Bentivoglio

Rome, Ginevra Bentivoglio EditoriA

22 October – 8 November 2009.

 

 

Nostalgia for the Future by Paolo Balmas

 

The true measure of the fascinating power of a science-fiction image is not to be sought, as one might believe, in the set of narrative effects—poised between logic and paradox—that arise from the forward displacement of its temporal coordinates. Rather, it lies in a subtler and more pervasive “emergent effect” that overrides and orchestrates all others, and which might be defined as an unexpected ability to seduce our imagination, bending it to favor the vivid immediacy of appearance over the mean and realistic continuum of history.

An effect—or, if one prefers, a systemic property—which, at the opposite end of an imaginary connecting thread, finds its counterpart in the very principle whereby no one would ever think of placing the most ancient tales of the gods of Olympus within a textbook prehistory populated by cavemen and mammoths.

Like the “Robot Portraits” presented some years ago, the “Flying Basilicas” shown by Tommaso Ragnisco in this exhibition investigate precisely that kind of free zone—impermeable to contingency and resistant to the everyday—that has animated the universe of science fiction since its inception. They do so not in order to unveil the founding secret of a literary, artistic, or cinematic genre—of which, after all, every devoted enthusiast is already in some way a partial custodian—but rather to bring to light, and illuminate anew, a whole series of aesthetic and motivational implications that go beyond issues related solely to the formal construction of the visual text.

If we examine these implications starting from the most external evidence of the work—its descriptive completeness—what immediately captures our attention is the tight relationship between coherence and improbability that characterizes the images before us: a relationship that compels the viewer, before anything else, to question the origin and raison d’être of the depicted objects and scenarios.

Who could ever have needed to build and employ highly sophisticated flying machines explicitly inspired by an obsolete, static, and unnecessarily detailed technology such as that of sacred architecture from the late Renaissance and Baroque periods? And for what possible reason should anyone traverse cosmic space, or hover over the more limited expanse of a planet similar to our own, with a fleet of spacecraft whose mobile units can either be hurled forward in a frenzy of acceleration or deployed in formations according to geometric schemes inspired by a form of territorial control that is more symbolic than factual? Above all, in what era could such events have taken place? After which disorienting occurrences? Within what perspective of domination or development?

From a logical standpoint, we would be inclined to immediately exclude the human species—or at least a human species that had evolved in a balanced manner—which would in all likelihood have known how to avoid such contradictions. One might instead hypothesize a variant or monstrously degenerate appendage of humanity, devoted to who knows what mysterious cults.

 

Reconsidering Ragnisco’s previous cycle of works, however, one is led to think that the correct interpretative reference for his paintings, drawings, and sculptures lies not so much in the human species as in a community of robots that has by now severed ties with its original creators—those same beings we have already seen engaged in pursuing an improbable requalification through the ennobling practice of painting, culminating in the creation of a veritable gallery of portraits of Renaissance lineage.

If this were the case—if the search for a sense of history, already widely contested by humans prior to their disappearance, had definitively given way to a continuous reshuffling of pure suggestions—then it would become perfectly understandable that, of our ancient “values,” the new holders of power would no longer have been able to identify anything other than their formal precipitates: those elements, at least, still capable of being resurrected through the manipulation of residual strings of genetic programs or software packages concealed within the folds of other software. Likewise, the iconic remnants of a civilization of information turned into pure telematic archaeology could easily have been transformed into a kind of heraldic game through which to measure oneself in the construction of instruments of war or contention.

If this is what Ragnisco’s Flying Basilicas—and all the images related to them—are speaking of, one must then ask why certain images and not others. Why architectural design and its graphic survey? Why the classical orders and their Baroque re-elaboration? Why the religious architecture of the Christian West, with its domes, its pediments, and its interiors that mirror the exterior?

 

Providing an answer is no easy task, but the very passion, renewed energy, and patient determination with which the artist devotes himself to the realization of his virtual scenographies point the way forward. What engages us in architectural design, as in industrial design or cinematic imagery, is not beauty understood as adherence to a canon of balances, symmetries, partitions, rhythms, and correspondences, but rather the gratifying sensation of correspondence between spatial transformation and libidinal investment that arises when desire is able to give itself a rule—one that sets it in motion and helps transform pure potential into a process of approach, knowledge into mental caress, and use into an act of love.

The specific formative code from which one begins is not important; what matters is that the symbolic self-limitation from which one proceeds is evident—not for the mere pleasure of transgressing it, but in order to attune oneself to what that very transgression opens up, progressively adhering to a creative idea of functionality that excludes the robot and restores the person.

 

Perhaps we are still in time; and in any case, even if we were not, nothing prevents us from attempting to construct a dream outside the time of history—to make a choice that places the luminous nostalgia of myth before the primordial and never-dormant nostalgia of chaos.

 

Paolo Balmas

 

Presentation and critical reflection written on the occasion of the exhibition (and accompanying catalogue) of Tommaso Ragnisco, Antropolis Flying Basilicas, curated by Paolo Balmas

Rome, Oratory of the Archconfraternity of Saint Catherine of Siena

24–26 May 2013

 

“Design” and Science Fiction, in a Qualitative Convergence 

by Federico Raponi

 

Immersed in special effects between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, Tommaso Ragnisco absorbed American science fiction and the work of Hans Ruedi Giger through the most classical icons of the genre: the spaceship and the robot. Broadening his field of vision, and driven by an aesthetic desire to compose and combine elements, he comes to perceive a Renaissance form of science fiction—one he particularly appreciates in Italian painting, for its freshness and lightness. Piero della Francesca, with his perfect profiles and mastery of light; Pollaiuolo; and, clearly, Leonardo. Or Jan van Eyck and the Flemish painters, whose canvases appear almost in HD—indeed, on film.

 

In 1995, Ragnisco gave two-dimensional form to a vision: a sketch of the bust of a being, half man and half mechanism, set against a black background. This was the first “Robioid,” a fusion of flesh and metal.

Why a portrait?

History revolves around humankind; for this reason, a face is evocative and extends beyond its features. It also represents the most emotionally charged subject to depict, as a container and synthesis of lived experience.

Tommaso envisions himself before a subject draped in folds—seemingly sewn and tailored by Renaissance masters - with the brilliance of Albrecht Dürer. He translates the prototype into sculpture as well, working like an artisan of an old workshop, from a time of less specialization - which he does not consider intrinsic to the artist - when one would alternate between palette, chisel, casting, and architectural design. While circling the idea of a short film that might develop the drawing, he continues producing other portraits, even if they were to be used “only” as props.

 

From Hans Holbein he borrows the dates placed beside the busts, though with a bidirectional reading that emphasizes the union of two eras separated by centuries. He spends a long time looking, especially when choosing colors. He had considered the luminosity of oil on copper as in Carracci, but the process requires considerable time. In this respect, the computer proved helpful, invaluable in the alchemical transformation that leads him to what he calls “digital oils".

 

He plays with simulation.

 

Ultimately, however, the material of a work does not determine the initial impact on the viewer’s gaze: when standing before a sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one does not first think, “it is marble.” Initially, using pencils, he searches for formal balance - the curve that speaks to him and on which to focus in order to find silhouettes. The result is then scanned and colorized through pixels. Finally comes the printing on canvas, where the same “mouse” strokes are repeated with the brush, applying butadiene and oil colors to define details and small highlights. Simulation once again, extended even to the frames: he would like to find them and adapt the paintings to their format, as in the past when a patron, faced with an empty wall, would ask a painter for a work of specific dimensions.

 

Ragnisco sees in his characters something deeply recognizable and, at the same time, something new and concealed. Androids are different from us: artificial intelligence and biomechanics. Their only human element is the mouth, understood as a means of communication. The eyes, instead - the gateway to the soul and therefore the prerogative of humanity - can at most be reduced to the red circular indicators of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. This gallery of heads constitutes a family, with mechanisms of relationship, interweaving, and a shared history. Along a further line of development, a couple of drawings enter the group, characterized by a higher degree of abstraction and surrealism. Conceived as objects, they nonetheless belong to the same familial nucleus - its accessories and, at the same time, hints of a world capable of containing them.

 

This universe is conceived as a large screen - where even the casting test resembles a portrait - always within the logic of simulation, the thread that closes the discourse. Tommaso favors retro cinema, hybridized with theater: the backdrop of grand Metropolis-like visions, with few but monumental elements, carefully crafted, and matte paintings that allow the eye to rest and interpretation to remain free. Within these spaces move creatures - as in Alien or E.T. - that elicit empathy and on which one can focus. In short, not the visual orgy of contemporary editing, crowded with empty presences, frenetic and over-directed.

 

For exterior scenes, he imagines Renaissance architecture, domes, and dirigibles. Not by chance: perspective was the cinema of that era, churches its multiplexes, and Perugino, painting a wall, could envision a piazza. Ragnisco studies how those buildings - light yet firmly rooted in the ground - might float, doubled specularly and rotated on a horizontal plane. Thus, a portion of St. Peter’s becomes a spaceship.

 

The scene then tightens into a “daylight” studio, almost a greenhouse: a place of peace, balance, and the mental processing necessary for concentration and resonance with the work. Highly refined atmospheres, as in Stanley Kubrick’s methodical Barry Lyndon.

 

Before the easel stands the last man of Antropolis, the society of machines. He is portraying a “cyborg.”

Robots value the human being, yet they do not employ him in the sciences, but in Art - precisely for his capacity to grasp the essence of life.

 

Federico Raponi

 

Presentation text written on the occasion of the exhibition (and its related catalogue) by Tommaso Ragnisco, Antropolis Portraits of Robots, curated by Ginevra Bentivoglio

Rome, Ginevra Bentivoglio EditoriA

22 October – 8 November 2009.