MATTER, BODY, AND RELATIONALITY: DAVIDE VIGGIANO’S TRANSDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE BETWEEN ECOLOGY AND POSTHUMAN THOUGHT
| by Barbara Pavan |
Davide Viggiano (Potenza, 1994) is a multidisciplinary artist whose background, spanning Textile Design and Visual Arts, has from the outset been shaped by the intersection of heterogeneous fields of knowledge. His artistic practice is distinguished by a sustained focus on experimenting with eco-sustainable materials of organic origin, explored through DIY processes and innovative methodologies aimed at the manipulation and formulation of new material compounds. Alongside his artistic production, he has developed a significant practice in the fields of design and education, collaborating with brands such as Westwing and teaching at institutions including NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, and Accademia del Lusso.
Davide Viggiano’s research is distinguished by a transdisciplinary approach that interweaves biotechnology, ecology, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, with an explicit reference to posthuman thought. His work is oriented toward an investigation of the vitality of matter and the networks of interconnection that bind living organisms – human and non-human alike – envisioning scenarios that move beyond an anthropocentric perspective. Within this framework, matter is never conceived as a passive element, but rather as an active agent of relation and transformation.
From the earliest stages of his education, Viggiano has attributed an eminently sensory and relational function to materiality. Matter is conceived as a living surface, capable of activating a tactile dimension comparable to that of the epidermis. The body – a central node within his research – is understood as the primary site of experience, where the skin becomes a psycho-physical threshold: a mediating boundary between interiority and the external world. From this dynamic emerges a reflection on the meaning of “inhabiting a body,” understood not as a purely biological condition, but as a complex, relational, and symbolic entity, open to expansion, technological hybridization, and continuous redefinition.
Formally, this conception translates into works in which matter frequently assumes an epidermal quality, functioning as an organic membrane and a device of memory. Surfaces become sensitive archives and, at the same time, communicative instruments capable of establishing an active relationship with the viewer. The relationship between artwork and observer is thus structured according to a logic of connection that metaphorically recalls the act of sewing or weaving: a process that binds, repairs, and brings distinct elements into relation with one another.
His work is oriented toward themes that traverse the human experience in its universal dimension, while simultaneously questioning social transformations and the mutations of forms of life. The concept of relationship – extended beyond the intersubjective sphere to encompass the entire ecosystem of living beings – thus becomes one of the central theoretical cores of his practice. In parallel, the notion of “inhabiting” is also expanded to include multiple levels: the body, clothing, domestic space, the environment, and the set of practices that shape individual experience. Encountering otherness therefore becomes a generative moment, capable of opening new interpretative possibilities.
FULL ARTICLE IS INCLUDED IN ATLAS – CHAPTER ONE, AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT WWW.AL3VIEATC.COM/SHOP/ATLAS-CAPITOLO-UNO/ OR BY CLICKING ON THE COVER
