“Sizigia” is an ancient Greek word that defines both the alignment of different celestial bodies in astronomy and the union and harmonization of opposites in the esoteric alchemical context.
Five plates, representing the five elements of ancient Chinese alchemy (water, fire, earth, air, metal), resonate through electromagnetic transducers that vibrate at low frequencies and produce infrasound. The reflections of dynamic light reveal how energy propagates through matter.
The installation explores the nature of the multiple through a composition of phases and counterphases, aiming to evoke in the viewer an “astral conjunction” that harmonizes and transcends the elemental and chaotic opposites of existence in a process of cosmic transmutation or phase alignment, transcending the ego and projecting it into another dimension.
The work is part of a research path on Lunarpunk aesthetics, a nocturnal and mysterious vision that embraces a modern and technological concept of magic, placing the individual and the spiritituality as the starting point for an ecosystemic and communal transformation.
Technical description:
Sizigia consists of a five brass satined circle plates, electromagnetic trasducers, dynamic light system, slate pebbles painted with uv paint.
For over a decade, transmedia artists Saverio Villirillo and Gregorio Comandini have been exploring the relationships between humans and machines, producing works ranging from installations, exhibitions, and social practices. After founding NONE collective, the duo of architects and A/V artists continues their investigation into the threshold between perception, consciousness and imagination with artistic practices that induce the audience into a liminal state.
Through the language of new media, the artists aim to guide participants in their works into ecstatic states where the boundary between reality and imagination dissolves. Mental journeys are generated by overstimulated bodily senses, assuming a condition of permanent change between present and future, fiction and reality, possible and impossible.
The liminal state of altered consciousness arises from speculative narratives where the artists activate a liminal rite in which the audience takes on the central role of enchantment generator, thus constituting the fantastical substance, the magical matter that frees itself from a disenchanted world overwhelmed by a cynical realism. The duo defines a transmedial aesthetic characterized by dark environments, where light, video and sound construct cyclic patterns, sudden glimpses, suspensions and hypnotic crescendos that become disruptive energy and lead to an unexpected rupture.
Their installative and performative works resemble collective rituals where participants find themselves in a liminal state on the threshold of consciousness, identity and time, where social constraints can be temporarily dissolved and future perspectives can be questioned. The dissolution of order during liminality creates an ambiguous, fluid, and malleable situation that allows for the establishment of new customs and an individuation process.
Saverio and Gregorio’s works have been exhibited at Light Art Museum (Budapest/HU), Somerset House (London/UK), Fukuoka Science Museum (Fukuoka/JP), Farol Santander (Sao Paulo/BR), GresArt 671 (Bergamo/IT), Design week (Milan/IT), K11 Art Space (Guangzhou/CN), Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome/IT).
They designed and realized historical and scientific outreach exhibitions including “Copernicus and the Revolution of the World” at the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum (2023, Rome), “Classico Pop” at the National Roman Museum (2018, Rome), the Italian Museum of Audiovisual and Cinema (2019, Rome), the Roman Museum of Santa Giulia (2023, Brescia).
