Rotoforo

My deep interest in the connection between humanity and the landscape finds expression in the "Rotoforo" project. This exploration is grounded in a self-built circular pinhole camera, a powerful instrument that not only captures images but transforms my perspective on the world. Through the pinhole, photography becomes an act of intimate and subjective observation, a form of interpreting the landscape that surpasses the visible surface. The 360-degree perspective offered by the "Rotoforo" amplifies this alternative view, immersing me in a reality that is complete, fragmented, multiplied, and overlaid, symbolizing the complexity of life. In the images of "Rotoforo," the territory is a continually transforming protagonist, revealed through the filter of the pinhole. This photographic device, with its inherent simplicity and complexities, becomes a metaphor for the philosophy guiding my project. Just as the pinhole transforms light into images, so does the "Rotoforo" transform the territory into a visual narrative that underscores the beauty of multiplicity and the depth of complexity. "Rotoforo" is more than just a collection of photographs; it is a personal reflection on my connection to the territory and the ever-changing nature of my worldview. It celebrates the ability of photography to unveil hidden layers, explore the concept of an ever-evolving reality, and offer an intimate perspective on the complexity of life that surrounds me.

The "Rotoforo" is a device that allows the author to detach from visible reality and enter a dimension that triggers perception. The camera is an instrument that records the visible based on our intentionality, reflecting fragments of the world back to us. The pinhole camera is one such tool, and the way it is constructed offers a distorted vision of the physicality of the world. But this is precisely the point: if things exist only in the moment we observe them, then what Baldassari creates is just as real. One might even wonder whether the common perception of the world is more distorted than that of the individual. Using a term coined by the author, the world filtered through the device is amplified, in an expanded, prolonged vision that, I dare say, allows the observer to linger in space and perceive something else— to perceive differently. The author is clear on this: "Through the pinhole, photography becomes an act of intimate and subjective observation, a form of interpreting the landscape that surpasses the visible surface." The term "surface" here is fundamental and relevant, as if the visible were a veil that prevents true perception. This is where the distinction between objective "recognition" and subjective "misrecognition" lies.

Furthermore, everyone can react differently to these visual constructs. Every perception, in fact, is filtered through each person's memory and is thus projected differently in the mind of the viewer. Every image combines with the "images we already have," forming new ones. In the mind, images are always overlapping; there are no fixed photo-types in this sense. We could say that we unconsciously observe in a 3D, non-linear time, where images of the past blend into the present and project into the (new) future—a bit like what happens in dreams.

Thus, Baldassari's "Rotoforo" helps us not only to observe a "revisited" world through a pinhole camera but also to engage with the perception of places through a process that is also made up of feelings, of "sensing" the world. These "visions" speak to the mutability of both perception and space. There is no single world; there are infinite ways of interpreting it. Perhaps this is the right conclusion for such a work, which invites us to explore the folds and interweavings of the visible.