Light from light. The Luminous Dynamic Sculptures of Angelo Paparcuri (Dynamic self-illuminating devices).

The home page of Angelo Paparcuri, alias ilgeniodellalampada (the genie of the lamp), is illuminating (the pun is necessary) for an understanding of the complex aesthetic philosophy behind his Di.Di.Au. (Dynamic self-illuminating devices(): a toothed wheel in motion advances a movie film, and at the same time installs, embosses and plants light on it, with a repetitive and constant gesture of a mechanical arm with a light bulb at its tip. Underneath it is flows an inscription: The illuminating art. It is clear that the Luminous Dynamic Sculptures of Angelo Paparcuri are a metaphor for the Seventh Art, that receives distilled light in its formative process and returns it amplified with meaning and emotion. Metaphor, therefore. Not just a "kinetic" game or experiment. If the most common objection against so-called "kinetic art" is that it is only a "bright idea" or a novel experiment, the works of Paparcuri escape unscathed by this criticism because they are in fact also a metaphor. They can, through their perceptual dynamics, in the words of Gillo Dorfless, "also imply a change in the sensory perception of the person, that this is not mere amusement, but might affect the threshold of his conscious activity." Paparcuri's sculptures are therefore kinetic-luminous experiences that synthesize thoughts. They capture the viewer as light attracts moths, but do not brand the experience with a sole meaning. There are stimuli that bring about a greater emotional involvement (how not to be influenced by the poetry of a work like Verba volant, where each of the letters in the Latin phrase is a cloth hanging in the wind, or not to follow the mysterious and complex luminous dynamism of The Mother Superior or The Ball Chair or The Mill), but then later, everyone can disengage from the hypnotic atmosphere and re-enter the light, logos, and thought. And still be able to catch the details, the many details of these sculptures in motion or the stimuli that originate even from the names that the author has given them. Under the waving letters of Verba volant, for example, there are drawings of two flattened cerebral hemispheres. Words fly away from those who are not prepared or pre-disposed to listen. Or you can see that what is smaller, often, can give strength to those who are bigger or, as in The Mother Superior, you can understand that "there is always a special eye" when two things are observed simultaneously. The game, in short, becomes philosophy in Paparcuri because the artist is able to combine a particularly fruitful creativity with scientific applications, creating a unity between art and science that for centuries was incorrectly kept apart.

Gaetano Cristino