The Karussell Association APS presents Anime di Cristallo: a research project by artist Silvia Mariotti that will be developed over the course of two years between Italy and Portugal.The project, made possible thanks to the support of the Direzione Generale Creatività contemporanea del Ministero della Cultura (General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture) within the framework of the Italian Council program (13th edition, 2024).

The exhibition Anime di Cristallo, installed in the former science laboratory of the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência of Lisbon, is inspired by the theories of biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who attributed a form of intelligence even to inorganic matter, and questions the role of humankind in the transformation of nature. Mariotti’s works – including sculptures, installations and photographs – explore hypothetical lifeforms generated by the coupling of natural and artificial elements, evoking suspended and changing worlds.At the heart of the project lies an investigation into the transformations and connections between the natural and the artificial, between human and nonhuman elements. Inspired by Haeckel’s studies, reinterpreted and amplified by the research of Italian scientist Laura Tripaldi, to whom the artist owes much in terms of her first embarking on the present project, Mariotti questions how nature evolves and changes through contamination and hybridization, modifying and adapting to processes of anthropisation. Through a combination of photography and sculpture, the artist simulates hybrid ecosystems, where imaginary creatures – the upshot of the fusion of organic and inorganic elements – are found as contemporary fossils. The works evoke worlds suspended in time, offering a reflection on humankind’s role in interfering with and altering the natural environment and how – even in its inorganic dimension – it is capable of adapting and responding in amazing ways even to the most violent of impact. Anime di Cristallo represents a profound inquiry into the consequences of human activity and the urgency of adopting new perspectives, mindful of the importance of nature as a basis for life and an entity in a constant state of renewal, forever generating changing forms of existence.

The advent of the iguanas

Silvia Mariotti amid catastrophe and transformation

Lately, there is a name that has been come up frequently in the tales of Silvia Mariotti, one who has been talking about ‘crystals’ for years. Not just crystals that form spontaneously in nature but also artificial ones. She says they are endowed with a soul, a sora of consciousness or cognitive ability to self-organise. She has read all the studies of scientist Laura Tripaldi on the ‘intelligence of materials,’^[1] which she is fascinated by. Crystals are formed in the wake of a transition of state in matter, i.e. through the process of the gradual solidification of a liquid, and take shape in orderly structures of various sizes. A natural type of crystallisation is visible in mineral rocks as stalactites and stalagmites: particular calcareous formations present in caves subject to karst phenomena.^[2] The formation periods of mineral deposits are extremely long, but seeing these stratified dripping forms (the Greek origin of the names in fact means ‘dripping’, ‘droplet’) is like witnessing the time captured in an image. Just like happens in the photographic process, recurrent in the work of Mariotti. Like photography, crystals create the illusion that time may be halted. When we speak of ‘crystallising’ in the figurative sense, we in fact mean the ability to block the flow of matter in an image. Like a crystal – which means ‘ice’ – time is frozen in a shape. Stabilising this process of the transformation of matter is part of Mariotti’s intention: making visible three-dimensional snapshots, and thereby visualising a possible future time in space. Her landscapes are presented simultaneously as real and virtual, organic and inorganic, human and artificial, past and future, living and non-living. Within them, traces of human presence, organic materials and inorganic compounds are to be found side by side. I am reminded of the descriptions of J. G. Ballard, an author very dear to her, in The Drowned World:^[3] a novel from the ‘catastrophic’ tetralogy by the British writer. Because of the increase in temperatures and the ensuing rise of ocean levels, the Earth changes climate and appearance: buildings are coated in layers of moss, and the grey ribbons of tarmac with the rusting shells of cars had been submerged by water, and now only boundless forests rise skywards. Reptiles “had taken over the city. Once again they were the dominant form of life.” Who knows whether, should they have the ability to do so in the future, human beings would choose to put a stop to the ‘advent of the iguanas’, or if on the other hand, they would prefer to let themselves be swallowed up by the new world, embracing a shared destiny of transformation, as the protagonist of the book chooses to do?

Giulia Bortoluzzi

^[1] Laura Tripaldi, Menti parallele. Scoprire l’intelligenza dei materiali, effequ, 2020.

^[2] Karst territories were the centre of interest in Mariotti’s research as a symbol of collective memory in Dawn on a Dark Sublime (2016).

^[3] James G. Ballard, The Drowned World, Berkley Books, London 1962.