Additive Subtraction
Examining the absence, ADDITIVE SUBTRACTION wants to shift the viewer’s perception, deconstructing established visual cues and revealing alternative meanings.
Bringing together the architecture of Villa la Rotonda and the idea of challenging our perception, ADDITIVE SUBTRACTION is an invitation to shift the attention and make us aware of what surrounds us.
Designed by Palladio and built in 1567, Villa La Rotonda it’s one of the most iconic architecture in history, and its mathematics proportions create visual and spatial harmony.
In ADDITIVE SUBTRACTION, the image of the Villa is altered by a physical element that selectively changes
its perception, its relations with the landscape and the connection between the exterior and the interior. This element interacts with each side in different ways and, like a “seen machine”, highlights and hides distinct parts.
The external wall approaches the Villa until it enters in the interior space. The element saturates an axis completely, breaking the continuity of the iconic central hall that is no longer perceivable in its entirety, but, altered deeply, creates an unexpected vision. Even inside the rooms, the project modifies the perception, each time in a different way, in relation to or in contrast with the exhibited artworks. The project changes also the circulation and the movements of the visitor, both outside and inside the Villa, which results to be divided into two parts that are not communicating.
The exhibited artworks are selected following the theme of ADDITIVE SUBTRACTION: removing, covering or eliminating, the gaps and the omissions add meanings. Moving the attention from an obvious subject, the artists opening up the viewer’s imagination.
