Among the many things done, Giacomo Costa has exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale and one of his works since 2006 is part of the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center. The preface of his monograph The Chronicles of Time published by Damiani was written by Norman Foster.
1. I’ll start with a direct question: are you worried about our planet?
Yes, I would say very much. The environment has always been at the center of my artistic career. Before doing the artist I spent part of my time doing the mountaineer and climbing mountains, the strong contrast between these pristine and powerful places compared to the distortions of the city was a slap in the face. This contrast made me realize that the city is a place where man is only a marginal part of a chaotic world. From these reflections I started using urban places as a means of telling people. In ’96 when I began this work of investigation towards a world that was no longer sustainable, scientific research activities knew the subject well, but, you know, public opinion and culture were much less.
2. Often in your works the work of man is contrasted with nature, almost as if it were an eternal battle between good and evil. Why?
When you climb mountains, you feel the power of nature and understand that you are only a small appendix; man is one of its components but it has gone mad.
Human beings, unlike all the other guests on the planet, can influence the environment and, thanks to technology, manage to live in places that would otherwise be impossible. In my works nature is seen as something non-human and often hardly relates to the city that is instead the emblem of man. I would like to emphasize that nature’s behavior is not the result of a design, but simply that it exists and does, instead the man who can plan his actions often makes wrong choices. In short, nature does not have a will while man does.
3. Your work could not exist without using a computer. What is your relationship with technology?
Like almost all those of my generation I have always been fascinated by science fiction and when I was a child the first computers began to be marketed. These machines attracted me a lot. After many years have passed and besides doing the mountaineer I also practiced the activity of photographer, but my desire was not to interpret reality but to manipulate it. We were in the second half of the 1990s and finally, thanks to Photoshop, I could begin to modify the existing one. The computer has become the extension of me and I use it to express myself. The interesting thing is that the computer being a technological tool evolves and with it my art also changes.
4. What programs do you use to design your works?
At first Photoshop, but then I started using three-dimensional modeling programs that allowed me to start from scratch to create my works. Lately instead I use more advanced programs that allow me to create three-dimensional animations. In fact my last works are animations. The program that I use more after years of study is called Houdini and is used mainly by the film industry to do special effects.
5. I believe that artists have the ability to understand the present and to anticipate the future, so I ask you if the future you imagine for our planet is different from what you would like.
So, let’s start from the assumption that I don’t have much faith in human beings. The future I imagine is similar to our past with a world dominated by aggression and personal interests. But it is also true that now, unlike the past, it is very easy for the masses to access and know the thoughts of the most enlightened people. Quickly large global movements can be born that pursue positive goals. So from a certain point of view I am pessimistic towards humankind but optimistic in the fact that thanks to new technologies we can spread and implement positive thoughts. A very important thing is that all of us are called into question and the behavior of individuals can have more influence than we believe on the fate of our planet.
6. Can you talk about the 2009 Private Garden series?
This series summarizes many of the things we said during the interview. In the past I always wanted to represent nature, but technology didn’t let me, finally in 2008 came out programs that enabled me to do it. The idea of this subject comes from the book A world without us by Alan Weisman. The author imagines a world where man suddenly becomes extinct and nature quickly conquers and cancels his work as if it had never existed. We believe we are eternal but in reality we are far weaker than nature which we constantly abuse. This work becomes important in my career because it is the one with which I was invited to the 2009 Venice Biennale.
7. Can you talk about the 2007-2011 Aqua series?
The name Aqua although it seems Latin is the English term used to indicate industrial water. The idea of the city that for many reasons is submerged is actually not mine, but of a very dear friend of mine who deals with statistics.
8. From the point of view of the representative technique it seems to me that for some works a different method has been used.
Yes exactly, in fact there are two series. In the first series the distortion of the water is not seen, but in any case there is a sensation of objects immersed thanks to the use of volumetric lights that are called caustics. In the second series, instead, another technique is used, I entered this information in my archives and then I framed it through a deforming filter built by me.
If I had done these works now, thanks to the use of more advanced programs, like Houdini, with that I could really immerse the cities into virtual water.
9. Can you talk about the Landscape series of 2012 – 2013?
The thing that amuses me a bit about these shots is that many people looking at them see us in stormy waters, while when I designed them I always considered them mountains! Over time, having listened the opinion of spectators, I too began to consider them seas, or rather a world where there is now nothing left and this is a sort of unnatural moving magma. This series of works represents well a concept
dear to me that is to use the power of photography and computer graphics programs to bring people into worlds that do not exist. These works seem almost like photographs, instead they are a parallel reality built by me. Working on this boundary between real and unreal and leaving the observer with a first feeling of disorientation is one of the objectives of my work.
10. Can you talk about the 2018 Atmosfere series?
It’s called like this because I imagine a world without atmosphere as if we were in space.
So there is no longer the density of the air nor the sounds. The project at the beginning had to be a series of shots, then working on it I decided to turn it into images that changed over time.
Let me explain better with an example, the customer who buys one of these works of mine buys a backlit photo with a frame, as if it were a simple light-box. In reality within the frame there is a large monitor with very high resolution and the image changes slightly from day to day. This happens because what we see is a video made of 1000 frames and one is passed every several hours, if one passes every 24 hours it would take about three years to witness the whole mutation! A city slowly collapses day after day, or a volcano erupts, this work during the collector’s lifetime changes with him.
