Monumental Artistic Illumination Methodology

Throughout a twenty-year experience in artistic illumination, I have conceived a special artistic illumination technique, which I sought, cogitated and created to transfer a dramaturgy interpretation of the work itself.
In my view, each statue represents a twofold actor with both a daytime and night facet, while the square and its portion of urban tissue become its stage. My choice begins with night fall and whether to let it in or not. If it fails to make the scene it will be present all the same in that darkness, whether it is accepted, put up with or welcomed by the author, who, in most cases of existing artistic heritage, created and positioned his work without envisaging any kind of illumination at all, which in fact did not exist.
Otherwise, instead the monument will enter in what is a true and proper urban scene. I like to seize the monument’s actor features: that monument recounts and celebrates something, an historical fact, an event or a value of thought and in its stillness perpetuates its memory and history. Hence its very own light dramaturgy, which aims at encouraging the tale, underscores its very own strength, poetic language and the beauty. To achieve an artwork’s high interpretation moment, I use, by transposing them from the scenery, the same criteria of lighting techniques operated in theatres. The study of the topic, its colour values, its postures, the convergences of both force and expressive forms, the context hosting the artwork are the key players on which the work unravels. My light technique likens painting, since it is possible to paint with light: by using light in its gradation variations instead of colours.
Another feature of my illumination method consists in bearing in mind the fundamental role played by shadows, rejecting the usage according to which churches and bell towers, castles and their ruins should normally be coloured with a yellow light, an ochre colour, achieved with a sodium light, which, in flattening the volumes, cancels the shadows, which, to me, in their different shades, are an essential feature. A practical proof of my light dramaturgy theory can be easily found in the illumination I produced in the Gran Madre di Dio, in Turin. The two statues placed at the opposite sides of the church are enveloped in a dynamic light which in its fade in -fade out movement determines a play of shadows, which, while mutating, supports the narration, arousing the viewer’s diverse emotions. In its stillness, the work remains identical yet it seems to be moving, according to the way the light affects it. Indeed, every artwork contains within its own narrative features: the light reveals them and makes them intelligible at the same time. To achieve these results, I use an completely innovative working method which draws on theatrical lighting methods, with the introduction of all the innovations and inventions made necessary by the progress of open air light technique operations. The originality of such method entails an exact reproduction of the identical illumination plan, since each and every “sign” has its own light and interpretation possibilities. One of the crucial moments of the work is the location survey, a phase during which lighting technique hypotheses are sketched and the preparation of materials is made. Then follows an experimental phase which entails the setting of the lights which due to their different features will provide different setting possibilities until the perfect solution is chosen. Rehearsals take place live, at sight, generally with the use of two or more industrial lifting trucks (such as bucket trucks) to allow technicians and equipment to be located in the exact spots; this leads to a third phase during which lights will be finally positioned. The outcome will be an exact simulation of the creative intention. This method is totally original in comparison to the normally used computerised design, it grants certain results which are faithful to the artistic invention. All this work ought to be supported by a long term tight-knit working team - the best guaranty to tackle the art illumination work. As far as the relationship between director and light engineers is concerned, this is carried out on the grounds of a specific theatre language and refers to an equally specific professionalism, which, as well as making technical-creative aspects its own, also knows “the tricks of the trade”, which in other words adds up to specific working experiences carried out in this field and following this very method.