Davide Tavini

In our view, talking about perennial topicality means talking about our perception of time, history, and human interactions. As we considered this project a collective debate, we’d like to hear more about your ideas as well. What is your perception of perennial topicality? And which element of this idea do you think that the artwork that you presented wants to portray?

Perennial topicality is an issue that has fascinated many philosophers throughout history. It consists of the non-perception of the passage of time. As we can well understand, time is a subjective factor for every living being: mankind, animals, and plant. We do not have a characteristic to identify it, in fact, in times past it was said that time was an entity, a creature, a divinity. Today, however, our society recognizes the factor of time as a simple unit of measurement to give a beginning and an end to one’s day. My idea of perennial topicality consists of the stagnant present where everything happens but there is no change. In my work I wanted to immortalize this concept by presenting a static image, where a sphere is shown at the bottom, symbolizing the Earth crushed by a perforated tube supporting two spheres, which indicate the human condition: youth and old age. Both spheres are on the same axis and neither of them allows the balance to hang; moreover, they have a cylindrical extrusion, which indicates the eye that observes the absence of time: the element on the left is the old age and looks down; the element on the right is youth and looks up. 

We are all the sum of our experiences, which shape our personality and perception. How did your personal history affect the creation of your artworks and in what way did you bring it into your project?

Empiricism is one of the pillars of art. Without experience and one’s own personal conception, there can be no artistic work. My vision for this work, in addition to literary and philosophical research, starts with a non-indifferent empirical aspect: the everyday. Everyday life is part of every human being and gives to our days meaning, a color, and a form. When do we go beyond the everyday and enter a grey daily loop? There are as many factors as there are questions. Nevertheless, the thin red line is crossed when our days and our lives are observed from our own eyes as an external point of view, without action, without meaning, with an empty and surrendered gaze. A life of spectatorship. Ineptitude in its purest form. These are the decadences that are projected in my work.

Due to the centrality of technology as well as the redefinition of our personal space, in these pandemic times the intimacy and the lack of it are now not only lived but conceived differently. How would you describe your perception of intimacy, relationships, and connection today?

The pandemic divided a world that had never before been so connected. The explosion of the web and the appearance of social networks have changed human life forever. Simplicity, speed, and convenience are the daughters of necessity: the virtue par excellence of this millennium. During lockdowns, the constant presence of technology and interconnectedness has become as fundamental as water or air. Despite considerable progress, intimacy and its beauty have been diverted from one’s conception of privacy. Privacy is taken for granted or trivialized, especially by young people, who share their photos and thoughts on social media, but do nothing more than provide information to market workers. When does one cross the threshold of the intimate and the collective? Simply by the individual choice of the single individual.

What do you expect from the audience’s experience after viewing your work in this digital environment? How do you think that our endless consumption of digital contents is affecting the production and the fruition of artworks? Do you think the virtual exhibition experience will continue to be a possible tool for presenting your research?

This is how I imagine my audience’s reaction: between amazement and destabilization. The digital is one of the symbols of modern progress in terms of technology and recreation. Art, as has been demonstrated in history, has also taken its place in human progress and evolution. The emergence of the digital world guarantees the survival and evolution of art and also contributes to its speed and dissemination in many other contexts. The other side of the coin is the superficiality and too much haste demanded by the market or the public, which could damage the way and process of working in creating art. In conclusion, for me, the digital world, social media, and virtual exhibitions can be great tools to present my work to the public, while continuing to shape and grow my own person and my artistic vocation. The world of art has always fascinated me since I was a child. This exhibition could be the beginning of a dream: to become an artist.