The Process of Transformation and the Question of Existence
1. Existence as an Unrepeatable Totality
For more than twenty years, my research has been guided by a fundamental question: How does Existence manifest itself?
This is not a question to which I seek to provide a definitive answer. If I already knew the answers to the questions that accompany my research, I would probably have no reason to continue creating photographic works. It is precisely the impossibility of exhausting this inquiry that keeps it alive, generating new reflections and further possibilities of expression.
To address this question, it is necessary to distinguish Existence from life, matter, and thought. Life undergoes its vicissitudes and comes to an end; matter changes, disintegrates, and recomposes itself; thought evolves and produces new interpretations of reality. Existence, by contrast, concerns the unrepeatable totality of what we are: the summa of our being, the experiences we undergo, the choices we make, the thoughts we develop, and the actions through which we participate in reality.
Every individual is the result of a unique combination of elements, experiences, and relationships. Even when two people's lives may appear similar, the way they experience and assimilate them belongs exclusively to each individual. It is this composition that makes every Existence singular and unrepeatable.
We can remember a life, recount its vicissitudes, and reconstruct its events. But no one can ever fully recount an Existence, because no sequence of facts is sufficient to convey the totality of what an individual has been and experienced.
The question that guides my research arises from the awareness that what we are cannot be reduced to the manifestations through which we become visible and recognizable. To understand how Existence manifests itself means questioning the relationship between our presence in reality and the singularity of what each of us is.
2. Transformation as the Source of Questions
Reality is shaped by continuous processes of transformation. Matter assumes different forms, life develops and runs its course, human beings change, ideas evolve, and our relationship with the world is continually redefined over time.
Observing these processes generates questions about who we are, what changes, and what we recognize as part of our identity. Transformation is neither a path towards Existence nor does it imply that Existence itself transforms. It is what happens in reality that prompts us to question it.
Through transformation, what appears familiar can reveal unexpected aspects; what seemed stable can expose its precariousness; what we considered essential can lose its original form and acquire a different meaning.
I am not interested in representing transformation as a purely physical phenomenon. I am interested in its capacity to challenge our perceptions and raise questions about the human condition and our relationship with reality.
Matter, life, and thought thus become fields through which to question Existence. They are not stages in a journey destined to reach a conclusion, but distinct domains in which transformation raises different questions.
Each work can address one of these questions without necessarily converging with the others. Each represents a passage in my research, a specific mode of exploration that can develop along a different course from that of other works.
The research therefore does not move towards a conclusive answer. It unfolds through questions that renew themselves and expressive possibilities that change over time. Transformation is the process that sustains this dynamic and keeps the question of Existence open.
3. Photography as a Language of Inquiry
Photography is the language through which this research takes shape. It is not simply a tool for documenting what exists, nor a medium used to illustrate ideas developed beforehand. It is the language through which observation, thought, and image construction come together to explore new ways of interpreting reality.
A photograph does not arise solely from technical knowledge, the choice of a subject, or the arrangement of light. These elements are indispensable, but they do not fully explain why, among the many possibilities available, one choice is made rather than another.
There is a deeper component, an inner force that guides decisions and draws on lived experience, reflection, accumulated knowledge, and the transformations that occur over time. The way we observe, select, and construct an image is influenced by who we have become and by the relationship we have developed with the world.
In this sense, every photograph carries something of my Existence. Not necessarily an autobiographical episode or a recognizable experience, but a trace of my way of being, thinking, and relating to reality. This does not mean recounting my life through images, nor claiming that every work expresses the totality of who I am. Personal experience participates in the creative process, guiding choices that cannot be reduced to technical skill alone.
The photographs I make today differ from those I produced ten or twenty years ago. This difference does not depend solely on the development of technical skills or the experimentation with new expressive possibilities. Over time, our experiences, reflections, questions, and the very way we look at the world around us change. My photographic research also evolves because the perspective of the person conducting it evolves.
Continuity in research therefore does not require images to retain the same form. It can reside in the persistence of the question from which they originate, while the language through which that question is explored transforms. Differences between works can bear witness to the evolution of vision and thought without having to conform to an immutable style.
The creative process may begin with the observation of a real element that arouses interest and becomes the subject of investigation. Alternatively, it may begin with a conceptual intuition that creates the need to construct an image capable of giving it form. These are two different approaches that can meet and proceed towards the same purpose: to question reality through the language of photography.
In my practice, a substantial part of the image is constructed during the shoot itself. The subject, light, composition, and visual conditions contain the fundamental elements of the inquiry. Subsequent work on the computer, which I regard as a kind of camera lucida, completes and develops the creative process.
Digital intervention is neither a simple technical correction nor an embellishment of the image. It is a stage of research in which I modify the visual material, experiment with relationships, intensify tensions, and determine which form best serves the inquiry at hand. Just as the darkroom represented a space of elaboration and interpretation for many photographers, digital work can also become an authentic place of creation.
Sometimes the desired effect is clear before the photograph is taken; at other times, the image finds its definitive configuration through experimentation. In both cases, technique serves an expressive and conceptual necessity that cannot be reduced to technique itself.
In some works, the transformation of the image becomes an integral part of the inquiry. In Dissolutio, for example, the progressive dissolution of matter, set against the persistence of a recognizable face, creates a tension between disappearance and presence. This relationship does not offer an answer about what might remain beyond life, but raises a question about the relationship between the body, identity, and transformation.
The transformation of an image does not necessarily imply a departure from reality. Instead, it can make visible aspects that habitual perception tends to overlook, challenging the categories through which we usually recognize things.
The image thus emerges from the encounter between what I observe, what I intend to investigate, and what I have become through experience. Once created, however, it is no longer confined to my personal experience or intentions: it acquires an autonomy of its own and can open up meanings that extend beyond those from which it originated.
4. VITA, MATERIA, EKTOS: Three Fields of Research
FORMALUX research is organized into three fields: VITA, MATERIA, and EKTOS. They are neither rigid categories nor photographic genres governed by predetermined rules. They are distinct areas of inquiry, connected by the question of Existence.
VITA explores the manifestations of life and the human condition. Presence, the body, and the face become elements through which to question the relationship between what appears and what cannot be conveyed by appearance alone. Life is not treated exclusively as a biological phenomenon, but as a condition through which aspects of our singularity become visible.
MATERIA focuses on the constituent elements of reality and the processes that alter their form and organization. Matter is not regarded as a static presence, but as a reality subject to continuous transformation. Through light, image manipulation, and the construction of spaces that sometimes depart from ordinary perception, I seek to explore new visual configurations and suggest different ways of conceiving our presence in the universe.
What we do not immediately recognize can arouse curiosity, but also unease, distrust, or rejection. Familiarity with the world often serves as a reference point through which we interpret what we see. When an image alters that reference, it can challenge our expectations and open up a different perceptual space.
EKTOS emerges from the development of the preceding investigations. It is not an autonomous field separate from VITA and MATERIA, because it extends their questions through a different perceptual and conceptual opening. It represents a further development of the photographic journey, in which the transformation of the image can lead vision away from habitual categories and suggest new interpretations of reality.
EKTOS does not seek to prove the existence of other worlds or assert hidden truths. Its purpose is exploratory: to investigate whether changing the conditions through which we perceive things can make it possible to imagine forms and relationships that we would not normally conceive.
The three fields therefore do not describe a linear progression towards an answer. Each addresses different aspects of the same inquiry, maintaining its own identity and autonomy. Their connection does not depend on the need to make the images uniform, but on the question that continues to challenge them.
The structure of VITA, MATERIA, and EKTOS thus allows the research to be articulated without reducing it to a single subject or an immutable visual language. Its coherence lies in the continuity of the inquiry, while the forms through which it manifests itself can differ according to the questions being explored.
5. The Artwork and the Autonomy of Meaning
Every artwork originates in an intention, a set of reflections, and a process of elaboration. Understanding these elements can help explain the reasons behind the image, but it cannot exhaust its meaning.
A photograph is not merely a record of a subject, just as it is not simply the visual translation of a concept. Its form, the relationships between its elements, the tensions it creates, and the possibilities of interpretation it opens up all contribute to its complexity.
Formal analysis alone is not always sufficient to understand an artwork. Yet neither can the artist's explanation be regarded as the definitive interpretation. The original intention is an important component, not a boundary beyond which the image can no longer be interpreted.
Once completed, the artwork lives on its own. It can evoke reflections, emotions, and associations that were not anticipated during the creative process. Those who observe it enter into a relationship with it through their own experience, imagination, and way of perceiving the world.
This autonomy does not erase the reasons that gave rise to the image, nor does it make the artist's process irrelevant. Rather, it means that the artwork is not subordinate to its explanation. Personal experience may be present in the choice of subject, the construction of light, the transformation of photographic material, and the tensions running through the image, without determining its meaning unambiguously.
Freedom of interpretation does not mean that every reading is equivalent to every other. Interpretation can develop in many directions, but it finds its points of reference in the image, its construction, and the relationships it makes perceptible.
The artist's task is not to impose a conclusion, but to create an artwork capable of sustaining an autonomous relationship with those who encounter it. I can explain the question from which a photograph emerged, describe the process through which it was made, and indicate the tensions I intended to explore. But I cannot determine in advance what every viewer must take from it.
FORMALUX works pose questions rather than offer answers. If answers are possible, it is up to each person to develop their own through a free and considered engagement with the image.
The artwork thus becomes a meeting place between the inquiry that gave rise to it and the experience of the person observing it. Within this encounter, further meanings can emerge without having to be reduced to the artist's original intentions.
6. An Open-Ended Inquiry
My photographic research did not begin with the certainty that I possessed an answer to the question of Existence. If that answer were already available, one of the fundamental reasons that drive me to continue making photographs would disappear.
Each work constitutes a passage in the research, a particular way of addressing a question through the language of images. It is not necessarily a stage leading to the next, nor a fragment of a system destined to be completed. Works may differ widely in form, subject, and method while remaining connected by the question that sustains them.
Over the years, the question has remained, while the way I approach it has changed. Lived experiences, developed thought, and the possibilities offered by photography have altered my perspective and the forms through which the research manifests itself. Continuity does not consist in keeping the language unchanged, but in the persistence of a question capable of generating new directions.
My work does not seek to explain Existence through images or reduce it to a conclusive definition. Rather, through the transformation of reality and its representation, it seeks to identify conditions in which the question can emerge with greater intensity.
Photography thus becomes a space for an ongoing encounter between what appears and what remains to be understood, between observed reality and the possibility of imagining it differently. Personal experience participates in this process, guiding choices and leaving traces in the works, but it does not entirely determine their meaning.
The research does not need to bring every work to the same solution, nor turn the differences between projects into a closed system. Each work can retain its individuality and address a particular question. It is the question of Existence that holds these experiences together without erasing their differences.
How does Existence manifest itself?
The question remains open. Not because the research lacks direction, but because every new image can alter its scope, reveal an unexpected tension, and open up a possibility of interpretation that was not previously present.
It is in this openness that the research continues to find its purpose.