Vicini più prossimi (Nearest Neighbor), 2009
glicée print mounted on aluminum, 60 x 40 x 4 cm framed
ed. 5 + 2 A.p.

Matteo’s artistic research consists in an effort to make the uncertainty of the image become visible. Like the person facing backwards in this series of pictures, we are spectators of an ephemeral show where the concept of reality wanes and falters in front of our eyes until it crumbles. (…) The artist causes “accidents”, distortions arising from the need to make the uncertainty of reality become visible. In order to achieve this, Girola has chosen to take pictures of people facing backwards, looking out to a world broken down into pixels. This is accomplished by placing next to one another different parts of the same image, acquired with different resolutions from a scanner set on the “nearest neighbor” interpolation, which inspired the name of this collection. This simple trick seems to break the deceptive spell usually enabled by photography: the cross-over between the two parts unveils the texture of the digital image, revealing its composition as well as its potential decay, thereby destroying the thin line between reality and deceitfulness which is becoming more and more a characterising feature of our time.

 
(Luca Panaro)