Jacopo  Ernesto Gasparrini

About

Graphic DesignBrandingWeb Design3D visualizationMotion DesignData VisualizationIllustration

Artistic practice

Images suck

Why does the world seem scarier and scarier? For some years now the entertainment industry seems to have moved from an original narrative of contrast and prevention at the end of the world (Terminator, 1984) towards an approach more linked to the concept of coexistence with the inevitable, survivalist (The Last of Us, 2023), with a flavor always tending towards the dystopian. This is just a small example of how fear has become an integral part of our perception of the current and future world and cannot be entirely linked to ecological and environmental issues. If, in fact, the political compass of the West has inexorably shifted to the right, this is probably caused by the pervasiveness of violent and frightening content in social media. The infosphere, increasingly suffocating and schizophrenic, now requires journalists and publishers to communicate facts with increasingly shorter and clickbait headlines, aimed at striking our all too volatile attention in a lightning-fast manner. The European and American far right has proven to be all too skilled in taking advantage of our constant sense of bewilderment, in the sensation of feeling in danger everywhere.

In this destructive game, images certainly play a fundamental role. If on the one hand, it is true that the most influential media, i.e. Social Networks, claim to protect us from violent images, these remain latent, hidden inhabit these boundless non-places like skin fungi, diseases that are never lethal, barely annoying, which spread their spores everywhere, infesting our senses and our perception of the world. Well aware of these dynamics are the spin doctors of right-wing politicians, who, using photos, videos, and news reporting violence caused by illegal immigrants or rapes committed by young misfits, implant in the brain the idea that the world is increasingly dangerous and devoid of ancient values. Fear today represents the strongest glue that holds people together: the fear of being defenseless, the fear of getting sick, and the fear of being powerless in the face of changes in the world.


It is precisely to describe my perception of the world, distorted by a thousand fears and intrusive thoughts, that I collect, select, and create frightening, disturbing, or simply incomprehensible objects and images. In this context, I make use of multiple heterogeneous techniques and materials that, forced to coexist, take on shapes similar to parasitic organisms, pieces of decaying flesh, or tumor growths. 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence, and digital illustration are techniques that by definition enhance technology, but which in juxtaposition with pencil drawing and Hydro-Dipping printing, take on a disturbing but defused dimension.

The organic shapes, and the colors close to materials such as bones, flesh, and cartilage work together to tell a pessimistic and terrifying vision of the world, which, however, at the same time, is embraced and collected as an opportunity to get in touch with the darkest parts of oneself and of world. The visions of violent attacks, the thought loops of insufficiency, and the humiliating memories finally stop proliferating in the shadows and can finally be embraced and brought to light, accepted, and, in this way, disinfected, medicated.

2020—2024

Contact me