The strange unease we feel when we look at a photograph of ourselves (or see ourselves “in action” in a video) is a fairly common experience. It’s something different from glancing at ourselves in a mirror or a shop window; in that case, we’re simply checking that “everything is in order.” Some try to improve their appearance or make themselves presentable, while almost everyone at least briefly checks their hair or clothing.

But when it comes to our photographic or video image, we don’t think of fixing our hair, because for a moment we “don’t recognize ourselves.” We perceive that image as that of someone else who—though perfectly resembling us—“is not us.”

But what exactly has become Other: the image we have of ourselves, or the body we “have of ourselves”? After so many photographs, video recordings, aestheticizations, and anesthetizations, the body (like Peter Schlemihl’s shadow) has grown tired of following us everywhere, has taken refuge elsewhere, has become an “ultra-body”—and now, to understand what happened to it, we must retrace clues, look for the slightest shred of evidence, collect all possible testimony.

Giovanni Ferrario’s work is the result of this preliminary investigative phase. In the meantime, the body has left behind traces: firstly, of sweat, which has soaked the absorbent paper and the sheets on which it lay; then, formal traces, which were embroidered or drawn where its weight or light made an appearance; finally, figurative imprints, which the scanner captured and returned as fragments of epidermis.

Yet the hunt remains open, because the “body of evidence” is confused with the “image of the crime”: sweat blends with the printer’s ink, scanning with gazing, skin becomes film, and the absorbent paper—actually soaked with sweat—soaks up the cutaneous layer of the images.

The invitation to know oneself worse that Ferrario offers us with his work must therefore be understood reflexively: knowing oneself worse is the only condition for knowing one another better—that is, for beginning to recognize ourselves as both one and other.

Marco Senaldi, December 1999

In the video room, Careof presents: Mondo Video, by Sandro Zaccardini.