THE SILENT RAY

The Silent Ray is a downwards exploration of the sometimes destructive desire of individuals to challenge mediocrity and break free from it. It is strongly rooted in research on photographic material from an album of photographs that my maternal grandfather made as he was fighting as a voluntary member of the fascist militia in Ethiopia in 1935-36. It is also informed by examination of documents, writings and other records transmitted by those who had taken part in the war, those who narrated it, and those who studied it, in an attempt to illuminate the darkness of a past that’s been often dismissed as a “lesser casualty” in a tumultuous historical period.

One of the foremost scopes of the work is to better frame some of the questions that the present moment is posing with ever increasing urgency, not only in regards to the resurgence of extreme right-wing tendencies in Europe and elsewhere, but also concerning a discourse on the ambivalent relation of historical records and personal memory.

I. The Album & The Other Album

The various pieces that are part of this research-based project are tightly interconnected and in close dialogue with one another. The collective title under which they are presented, which is also the title of the main piece in the work, is a reference to the rumored death ray of Guglielmo Marconi, which was said to be a secret weapon developed under Fascism’s auspices and capable to destroy all signs of life from great distances.

Like a far-reaching thread, the image of the ray’s deadly power metaphorically binds together the past and the present.