Nicole Voltan - Terra (Earth) and Breaking Balance

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Nicole Voltan - Terra (Earth) and Breaking Balance

Published: Thursday, November 21 2013 08:00

voltanx3-1

Isostasia-1 / Video still

BY NICOLE VOLTAN

The geological principle of Isostasy [geology: Greek ísos "equal", stásis "standstill"] explains how different topographic heights can be on the Earth's surface. It is a term used in geology to refer to the state of gravitational equilibrium on the Earth's surface.

If this balance is altered, due to a change in the Earth's surface density (for example because of mountains erosion, accumulation of sediments or ice defrost) the Earth's crust tries to restore itself with some isostatic adjustments, such as the Orogeny (the rise of the mountain ranges).
Isostasy is not a process that upsets equilibrium, but rather one which restores it.

With a poetical approach and referring to this geological concept, Nicole Voltan focuses on the anthropological desire to find one's place in the creation and the continuous research of one's intrinsic balance, apparently precarious but instead solid and stable, a balance on which everything is firmly placed. Just as in nature.

Isostasia – 1

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Isostasia-1 / Video still

The video Isostasy – 1 after a visionary starts, moves into increased reality. It is not only a documentation, but also a re-inscription of "vital geometry" of the natural elements, its main protagonist is not only nature. In fact the presence of the "walking shadows" represents the projection of the dark side of the human being, continuosly balancing him or herself on Earth, both emotionally and physically, reminding us of his or her intervention in the change of geometry/geography of the planet, or even just reflecting upon his or her passive life experience in nature.
In conclusion, the presence of the worm (animal with a high vital capacity) is a metaphor for the human life in relation to nature: an elastic movement in an elastic ground.

LINK TO THE VIDEO:
https://vimeo.com/59136244

Isostasia – 1
5 minutes and 16 seconds – 2011 – Location: Dolomiti di Sesto, Misurina (BL) Italy
Scala C / Open studios, gardens and houses – collective exhibition – 22 / 30 jul 2013 – Studio Hauser&Voltan, P.zza Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome.
Solo exhibition in November at the Galleria Cinica, Palazzo Lucarini, Trevi.

Isostasia – 0

Isostasia-0 / detail of the installation

The landscapes of Isostasia – 0, built with old parts and circuits of technological objects, suggest planets hosting cubic, architectural structures, which appear flying or collapsing as the worlds they gravitate on.
Utopian gathering places, where the opposites reign: nature and human's creation, fragility and strength (inner), the presence of boundaries and hypsometric curves, the state of suspension between the volumetric weight of the sculptures bases and the precariousness of the stems that support them.
A post-human future in which man's absence has not yet succeeded in restoring the dualism nature-artifice.

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