Phenomenology of a Journey

To mark Contemporary Art Day, Studiottantuno Contemporary Art Projects presents videos created by Massimo Pisani in 2025–2026, alongside earlier, related works. These videos mark a progressive opening in Pisani’s practice, moving beyond a previous phase that was perhaps more enclosed within a self-sufficient conceptual framework. The theme of the journey—as explicitly referenced in the title of his work *Libro di Viaggio* (Travel Book)—conveys a state of aimless wandering and the discovery of the unforeseen and unknown; metaphorically, this can be applied to art itself through three fundamental analytical pillars: time, space, and communication—the fertile ground where shifts and changes in perspective take shape. For instance, the concept of time within the work is powerfully expressed in the video *Da dove* (From Where), which reveals a circular continuity in artistic time, causing the beginning and the end to coincide. Regarding the sense of place in art, the video *Transiti esitanti* (Hesitant Transits) centers on the work *Compressore di vuoto* (Vacuum Compressor)—in which one word negates another, like a declaration of impossibility. This piece becomes the focal point of a performance, as if various spatial contexts were to reveal its “void”—that is, the unreachable distance and the alienating elusiveness of its inherent contradiction. Meanwhile, the video *Libro di Viaggio* introduces another paramount factor: communication. Photography acts as the medium here; its visual component triggers the narrative system of Pisani’s texts—a form of psychic automatism that does not remain raw but is instead corrected, filtered, and distilled over time, prefiguring a potential utopia of connection between art and life. The recent video *Slittamenti* (2026) appears to mark a pivotal crossroads opening onto new communicative possibilities. In it, the artist scrolls through phrases, aphorisms, and titles—elements previously used as conceptual cores or philosophical-sentential platforms that often underpinned the work’s material concreteness. This dematerialization yields a primal conceptual purity rooted in the word as discourse, yet it foregrounds the communication of written text at a critical point of suspension—a moment demanding a choice or a final resolution. In this context, one might also point to the systems of coded language Pisani had previously explored by juxtaposing, mixing, and layering words and signs at the limits of communicability, or by creating cryptic scripts that dissolved meaning in favor of purely graphic-visual qualities. This is evident in works such as *Sistemi perimetrali* (2018) and *Codice docile* (2003). Meanwhile, the structural element of movement in Pisani’s videos evolves into an intrinsically new form of the artwork itself, thereby foreshadowing a promising new “journey” in his artistic practice.