“Play God”, critic text by Vittorio Urbani & Elisa Genna, 2014, eng

A site specific installation, made up of two projections, a sound piece, a carpet and a fragrance. In the dark intriguing atmosphere of the Oratorio, the spectator will see the same projection, one projected within the altarpiece and the other on the opposite wall. The video portrays the naked body of the artist, seen from behind, from the nape to the pelvis, while he moves his arms back and forth: an action continuously repeated, a meditation exercise, a source of energy.

The background of the video is a geometric black and white pattern, inspired by a Frank Stella lithography, from the series Black, 1967.
Between the two projections, that are like two poles of attraction, the audio, the fragrance and the carpet gravitate: the latter printed with the same geometric pattern as in the video, linking the altarpiece with the opposite wall; the audio, on the other hand, produced by wind musical instruments, played with the technique of circular breathing creating a continuous fluxus, without interruptions, just as the body movement in the video projection. To enrich the sensorial experience of the spectator a special fragrance is spread over in the space: it’s the bay leaf (Lauris Nobilis). It fits perfectly with the installation because of its symbolic quality, as a sacred plant for the Greeks and Romans, used to legitimate poets and emperors.

The artist builds an immersive and hypnotic space, in which all the installation elements contribute to create this atmosphere in symbiosis one with the other. Symbiosis made up of visual, rhythmical and olfactory references, where it is difficult to distinguish between the source and the bounce: what comes before, the carpet or its image? Sound or movement? The perfumed note (absolutely Western) or the perception we have of it (as an incence/oriental fragrance)?

Then stop, a minute of silence when all you can see is the geometric pattern on the walls and the carpet under your feet; it’s like the gathering of prayer, before the beginning of a new liturgy: 6 min. of sound + 1 min. of silence repeated in loop. The distance between the lines of the pattern on the carpet is 6 cm and the width of the lines is 1 cm. 7, the perfect number for the mystics.

Sacred spaces are places when communication between this world and the other world is possible. The black and white background is not simply a repetition of the carpet pattern, but a new interpretation and celebration of opposites and symbolism, sacred and non, and the relation between them.

As well as opposites there are Stella minimalism and Morucchio's body, the disappearing and presence of the artist, who, though this work also speaks about his life experiences: the pattern on the carpet, commissioned by the artist to a Tibetan refugees workshop in Nepal at the end of the 90s, is use by the artist at home as a place of meditation.Topics as circularity, repetition, binary logic of the opposites, esoterism, body, religion, are constant in Morucchio's works.