Aniello Barone, foto.sintesi, 2022

On December 30, 2019, from 11:30 am to 3:30 pm, on the island of Ventotene, Aniello Barone photographs a geological wall, reading the Earth’s history and its stratification of different epochs through it. He notices a shadow, a silhouette, and imagines seeing a constantly evolving human profile that “questions” him. The highlighting of the human shadow becomes nature and cannot be otherwise: Man is Nature! “The gaze rests for a brief moment on a prehuman or perhaps posthuman world. The place does not lend itself to interpretations: the illusion turns into anguish, restlessness. We are far from an exotic vision-version of nature. Prehistory dialogues with posthistory; the present becomes rarefied in the presence of a “timeless” nature of sapiens. For the viewer, it is a “magical” event that comes to life before their eyes. A geological and historical testimony of a supernormal explosion. A narrative where the inanimate comes to life: cryptic and senseless, or pre-logical, it exists outside and within us, with our own vices, moods, and torments.” – Aniello Barone.