“The Head and the Face”

“Abstract Machines”

50×30 cm
Monotype

2020

During the pandemic, the face was masked, alienated and homologated.
For Deleuze and Guattari, the face is the interface of frequencies and possibilities; the place where the layers of signification and subjectification coincide:
The face is like a landscape _⁽¹⁾ ( Paysageite) , a unique landscape in which the signs of
of time are imprinted like craters and our emotions are coded and decoded by facial expressions ^₍₂₎.
The face is the first manifestation of our identity and uniqueness.

But what happens when the face is alienated?
Deleuze and Guattari say that when the face is masked ⁽³⁾ or erased, it becomes a head ⁽⁴⁾.
.
The head is an appendage of the body and has no spatial organisation ( no facial expression).
; it is the “becoming-animal”⁽⁵⁾, the space where the animal spirits can place themselves
(our animal nature).
It is no coincidence that in primitive societies the face is not as important as the body.
the body: the tribal mask more clearly connects the head and the body.
Moreover, the masking of the face also has other consequences that are taken into account:

“Unknown Heads”

50×40 cm
Oil and paper on canvas
2021

Firstly, anonymity offers the possibility that the masked person gets a new face, a new identity.
However, it is more complicated when many faces are masked in the same way at the same time:
The mask obligation during the pandemic is a good example: the mask does not create a new
face (like a grotesque or carnival mask) but homogenises (unifies) and refuses
the personality, it denies the identity of the person.
As a consequence, a new identity is produced, a simulacrum ⁽⁶⁾,
a collective face. Each individual masked person is like a “facticius”⁽⁷⁾, a fragment that is
enough to relate directly to all the other masks.

The internet within his Algorithms has exploded of informations concerning the Pandemic, expanding and bouncing like a Virus in an Eco-chamber.
Even the voice of the underground, that keeps reminding us that we have to wear a mask against the virus, is like an off-screen sound a “voice-over” and also has a face, although it is immaterial.
The biological virus that is virtual to us because we could not see it without microscopes,
has embodied itself in all these signals (such as the mask , the off-tone voice and the Internet) and thus manifested itself.
Secondly, because the emotions of an alien masked face cannot be so easily decoded, both the body and the body language have been re-evaluated. Consequently, there is a new evaluation of the
body and a new identity has been established through the body and the head.
The body will act as a uniform, the face is projected onto the body, our
identity has been embodied.

As a result of the anonymity and homologation of the masses wearing the mask, we are often reminded that other people can also be ourselves, as a result of alienation, we are looking at ourselves from the outside and recognize ourselves in other non-faces….
Death, or perhaps the fear, becomes the thing that most connects us to others and simultaneously separates us from them; we are all in the same boat: We suddenly realize that we are all mortal, that there are no hierarchies or exceptions ,
illusions of superiority collapse.
The same rules apply to all of us, and we all share the same “Ananke” (destiny).

Throughout history, Jesus Christ’s face has been the most well known face in Western society.
A face that through symbols like the halo, the crown of thorns, the long hair, and the
beard, built up his identity, although we never foresaw his face.
Throughout Art history, many Artists ⁽⁸⁾have designed the face of Christ. His face has multiplied and became a
majority in the western collective image. Racism has also arisen from this
as the minorities, which were just considered as variations of the face of Jesus. The face
of Jesus has become an unconscious discriminator. Rare are the artists who have portrayed Jesus without a face.

The anonymity of the face, its undefinability,
potentially creates a new milieu in which the majority is no longer discriminating;
From an idealistic point of view, anonymity creates a greater openness to that which is different,
to that which is unknown to us, as any identity can potentially be the same
identity. This dimension leaves more space for memory, imagination and diversity.
On the other hand, anonymity can also become a discriminator for the Naked Face.
Diversity opens doors, possibilities:
A microcosm of hidden emotions that are often unconsciously expressed not only through the words,
but also through the expression of the face and its coded micro-movements (ticks).
The masks against Covid 19 have almost completely closed these doors of possibility and decoding.
It is no longer possible to calculate and interpret this information. Now we can only imagine who is behind the mask, and what emotions the unknown head is expressing at that moment.

Only the eyes were breathing and speaking, giving us hope. The rest of the face had become more intimate, private, a Tabu on the public transport. Perhaps the internet is the
only non-place where we are no longer vulnerable, where we can communicate better, and
where we can show our face in public? “A nowhere, where new encounters are possible, where we can share our privacy, where we can be everywhere at any time-
“where everything is possible.” But in this Utopia, is there still a space for imagination?”

In this Project I have tried to explore and question this themes using different Media such as painting, sculpture and writing poems.

“Penner”

60×100 cm
mixed technique on canvas
2020

(English follows Italian)

L’indifferenza nei tuoi occhi mi pervade

Cerco di ritrovarti nello sguardo parziale

Il resto è coperto

Il tuo viso nascosto

Avvolto dal mistero

Come una maschera teatrale

Confonderti con gli altri mi viene naturale

L’unica cosa che rimane visibile

È la tua immagine Virtuale.

The indifference in your eyes pervades me
I try to find you in the partial gaze
The rest is covered
Your face hidden
Shrouded in mystery
Like a theatrical mask
Disguising you with others is to me natural
The only thing that remains visible
Is your being virtual .

“Coro di maschere ”

120×160 cm
mixed technique on canvas
2021

(English follows Italian)

Facce accartocciate
Nella metro
Respirano con gli occhi

Una larva striscia sulla tela
Sola inconsapevole
Di essere
Sul punto di morte
Più viva di quelle figure strappate

Popolo senza volto
Inghiottito dall’oscurità
Fa intravedere
Maschere di corpi.

Crumpled faces
In the metro
They breathe with their eyes

A larva crawls on the canvas
Alone and unaware
Of being
On the verge of death
More alive than those torn figures

Faceless people
Swallowed up by the darkness
Giving a glimpse of
Masks of bodies.

“Simulacrum No.1; No.2”

180x80cm
oil and acrylic on canvas
2020-21 (Sold)

(English follows italian)

Sul vagone scende la sera
Un uomo accartocciato
Privi di sensi i suoi occhi
Il braccio appesantito
Di un Cristo morente

Sguardi vuoti dei Pendolari
Ignorano la morte
Dimenticano di essere
Anche loro Polvere

Passa qualche mese

La morte è ora nell’aria
La paura si cela
Dietro una mascherina
Morire non è più banale

Ma l’individualismo
si fa ancora più greve
tossire è diventato grave
Se sei sulla metro
Un nemico mortale

Il volto celato
Lo spirito mascherato
Solo agli occhi
Viene concesso
Di respirare

Mi viene difficile
Dover rinunciare
Allo scambio naturale
Che tra sconosciuti avviene

Identità frammentata
senza l’altro amputata
Piegata verso l’interno
È omologata

a vivere da sola
                                        Confinata
                                 A temere il prossimo
Obbligata

Solo una cosa le resta concessa
Uno schermo, una finestra
Per sentirsi connessa

Sono libera?
Non copro il mio volto ,
Ma di me cosa resta?

Un’immagine
Riflessa
Virtuale
Ideale

Un simulacro

Anche qui
Ad indossare
L’ennesima maschera

Mi ritrovo.

Evening falls on the wagon
A crumpled man
Unconscious eyes
The fatigued arm
Of a dying Christ

Empty gaze of the commuters
They ignore death
They forget that they are…
They are Dust too

A few months go by

Death is now in the air
Fear hides
Behind a mask
Dying is no longer banal

But individualism
becomes even more severe
Coughing has become serious
If you are on the metro
“A mortal enemy”

The hidden face
The masked soul
Only the eyes
Are allowed
To breathe

I find it difficult
Having to renounce
The natural exchange
That takes place between strangers

Fragmented identity
without the other amputated
Bent inwards
It is homologated

to live alone
Confined
Afraid of others
Obliged

Only one thing is left to her
A screen, a window
To feel connected

Am I free?
I do not cover my face ,
But what is left of me?

A Reflected Image
Virtual
Ideal

A Simulacrum

Also here
Wearing
The umpteenth mask

I find myself.

“Simulacrum no.0”

250x180cm
oil and acrylic on canvas
2020

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) vgl. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1980): A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Translation and Foreword by

Brian Massumi) S.167-168

2)” But the face represents a far more intense, if slower, deterritorialization. We could say that it is an absolute deterritorialization:

it is no longer relative because it removes the head from the stratum of the organism, human or animal, and connects it to other

strata, such as signi-fiance and subjectification. Now the face has a correlate of great importance: the landscape, which is not just a

milieu but a deterritorialized world. There are a number of face-landscape correlations, on this “higher” level. Christian education

exerts spiritual control over both faciality and landscapity (paysageit’e)” Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1980): A Thousand

Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Translation and Foreword by Brian Massumi) S.172

3) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1980): A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Translation and Foreword by

Brian Massumi) S.181

4) cf. Gilles Deleuze; Francis Bacon; The Logic Of Sensation (1984); translation by Joseph Vogl p.19
5) Ibid.
6)Simulacrum (Latin)~ in this context as deception illusion.
7)Facticius (Latin)~ Artificial; for Sigmund Freud as object the desire which either as object or as part of the body relates to
the whole body ; for Giorgio Agamben, as a fragment, he writes that an analogy between the denial
of which Freud writes about fetichism (International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1927) and the synecdoche as a
rhetorical figure that denotes the replacement of a word by a term from the same conceptual field; also the aesthetics
of Non-Finito (Unfinished) sculptures by Michelangelo refers to the whole picture by a facticius or fragment. Giorgio
Agamben: Igv. “Stanze”- Freud l’Oggetto Assente” 1977
8) Igv. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1980): A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Translation and Foreword
by Brian Massumi) cf.)p.178