Blog

Maurizio Marco Tozzi

To love the Earth and to know how to represent it is not so usual. It is a gift that stems from a deep awareness of the time in which we are living, when indifference and the lack of respect for nature are leading us towards a no longer slow self-destruction. Many people seem to be unaware of our destiny , as if they did not know the beauties of our world, those beauties that Max Searradifalco has managed to bring back to light in a thoroughly innovative way, giving a sensitive hopeful cry for the protection of our heritage. By making use of one of the most exploited technologies of our times – the Internet and its almost monopolistic research engine, Google with its app Google Maps – Max has virtually wandered about our planet looking for places with very different features, but above all discovering a new way of observing and re-interpreting every corner of the Earth. While looking at the satellite images chosen by Max, we cannot but be enchanted by the various landscapes he has collected. At first sight, they look like abstract paintings, full of substance. This substance is nothing else but our territory and today, thanks to the new technologies and above all to the artist’s work, we can feel this territory nearer and nearer, in spite of its being perhaps many kilometres away from the place where we actually live.

Max’s works continue an experimental work on the use of satellites begun by Naim June Paik in the 60s and carried on by many other artists such as Douglas Davis, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz. These artists used distant communication to create works in which a strong interaction between the public and the artist was created. With the same media and the same desire to involve the public in a wonderful virtual journey, Max has conceived his Web Landscape Photography – an art that eliminates every space and time boundary. Through his art, Max gives us the key to discover the Earth, to learn how to love it, and to feel closer to each other. While we admire his photographs, we feel as if we lived simultaneously in many different places, from Australia to Tanzania, from Venice lagoon to Siberia, Greenland and many other sites of the six continents. Through his images, we experience a sort of telepresence, which Lev Manovich defines as the means “not of creating a new object, but of approaching it, of forming relationships, of observing what happens in a faraway place…”. Faraway places which Max Serradifalco – although he had observed them by the computer and photographed them through the satellite – decided not to defile by using further digital means. He has kept the integrity of these places in their purity and magnificent uniqueness. Max’s work has therefore a great and revolutionary aesthetic impact, but at the same time it strongly and courageously warns us about the earthly paradises he helps us to discover.