Chapter three – Event Horizon

 

 
(watching the stars from a windowless room – darkroom experiments)

 

Perugia – May 2020

The “event horizon” is the boundary at the edge of a black hole.
Beyond that point the gravity of the cosmological singularity does not allow anything to escape, not even the light, the laws of physics are disrupted there.
“An event horizon is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect an observer.” 
During these days of confinement I feel like an observer beyond that border.
You cannot go beyond 200 meters from your home, except for important reasons. Happily, inside this range is located the darkroom that I share with a group of other photographers.
Some time ago the darkroom was further away, in a free-spirit art neighbourhood, but we were recently evicted. Now that very place has been turned into a pizzeria.
The new darkroom is now closer. I am the only photographer of the collective who lives within 200 meters from it. For a while this place has been entirely mine. I can throw myself into that kind of “singularity”.
I happily let myself be sucked into this personal black hole.

 

Lost Space – one more time
Logbook. We have now lost contact with ground control. There are no answers coming from home. We continue to send communications. We sent out a report from every world we have explored. It is our mission and we shall carry it through even if it never ends. The universe is so diverse and there are so many worlds.
This seemingly endless space makes us feel small.

 

 
(the radio operator from deep space – backstage and pinhole photo)

 

Perugia – November 2020

I need special conditions to capture images of the cosmonauts.
Space-time can be folded.  You may find yourself lost in a border zone, with no ground under your feet and unable to see the future ahead.
You can find yourself in this condition, when the event horizon is reached, when everything is at rest, stalled at the limit, with the risk that if you take one more step you will be sucked in immediately into absolute nothingness.
In the corner of the blue planet where I live, a similar condition occurred last spring, due to lockdown, and because of this I was able to capture images of explorers lost space.
After lockdown, in spite of my numerous attempts, I rarely managed to capture new images: outer space invaded my life with its busy schedule and I could no longer capture images.
Now, as we approach that border again, I retrieve those images, but they tend to escape. We are still in pre-lockdown. The Italian government continues to postpone a total closure, but we all know it is inevitable, we are just waiting to happen.
On the other hand, the images of explorers captured months ago are filling up with words.
Sound travels slower than light, probably, for this reason, their latest reports are coming just now. But their words are not in my language. I listen to their communications and transcribe them.
I don’t understand exactly what they are trying to tell me.
It’s been a while now that I go for an evening out with friends or greet them with a hug or enjoy a concert.
Maybe that’s why I hear voices?

 

Turin – March 1794
“Voyage autour de ma chambre” –  Xavier De Maistre 

But you must not let yourself think that instead of keeping my promise to describe my journey around my room, I am beating the bush to see how I can evade the difficulty. This would be a great mistake on your part. For our journey is really going: and, while my soul, falling back on her own resources, was in the last chapter threading the mazy paths of metaphysics, I had so placed myself in my arm-chair…