Mattia casalegno – The Open

Posted by Fabio 9 November 2010

A sensorial wearable device forcing to smell grass and to hear your own breath. Equipped with fresh turf and headphones, this mask inhibit the visual system while enhancing the olfactory by the proximity with soil. The device defines also a sensory territory constructed by the rhytm of the breath, which is diffused from the headphones with a 1.5 sec. delay.
The work plays with the Deleuzian notion of ritornell, and about the quality of sound to define a territory. The space defined by the sound of breathing is in a state of costant imbalance between the physical act and its sensory perception and traces an unstable relationship with the intimate environment the garment reproduces.

Mattia Casalegno was born in Naples (Italy) in 1981. He’s a multidsciplinary artist who often collaborates with designers, scientists, neurologists and musicians producing works that span architectural video-installations, immersive environments and live media performances.
His aesthetics are driven by research in the relationships between the fields of information (in-forms, to give form), biology (bio-logos, discourse on living) and ecology (in the Batesonian term), pointing on the centrality of code as tools and metaphor of his poetic. He is currently based in Los Angeles, CA, US.

The Open
wearable architecture, 2010
custom electronics, custom software, microphone, fresh turf
New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
10.14.2010 to 10.20.2010

www.mattiacasalegno.net