Astrid Wulff and Alberto Menegazzo (from Denmark and Italy, both living in London), Marco Annunziata (Italian), Antonia Peon-Veiga Petric (Chilean, living in New Yor), Barbara De Ponti (Italian), Susanne Rottenbacher (German), Elena Baldelli (Italian), Riccardo Fraconti (Italian), Diego Caglioni (Italian), Martina Della Valle (Italian, living in Berlin), Mikayel Ohanjanyan (Armenian), Renzi/Dragoni (Italian): here are the 11 international artists selected to be admitted as fully qualified entries into the final section of the sixth edition of the Targetti Light Art Award.
The jury – composed by Amnon Barzel (artistic director of the Targetti Light Art Collection), Omar Calabrese (semiologist), Alessandra Mammì (journalist of L’Espresso magazine), Peter Noever (director of the MAK Museum, Wien), Franiska Nori (director of the CCC Strozzina, Florence), David Sarkysian (director of the MUAR, Moscow) and Paolo Targetti (president of Targetti Sankey SpA) – selected their projects among the 867 arrived from all around the world and rewarded their creativity and capability of using artificial light to imagine unusual tributes to the Futurism.
Each of them will receive a reimbursement of expenses and the technical assistance necessary to transform their project into a light work, but just 3 pieces will have the possibility to be part of the Targetti Light Art Collection and to be awarded with a total amount of 20,000 €.


CATHEGORY LIGHT WORKS

Astrid Wulff and Alberto Menegazzo, Echoes of machinery
A piece of the mechanical world (a gear) is multiplied infinitely on four overlapping sheets of Plexiglas with backlighting from a precise arrangement of dynamic lights that evoke motion. Technology, one hundred years after the Futurists had celebrated it as the excellent object of artistic creation is back again as the protagonist of this work of art.
Astrid was born in Aarhus (Denmark) in 1981. Alberto was born in Bergamo (Italy) in 1978. They both live and work in London.

Marco Annunziata, Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna 2.0
A window overlooking the sea. A full moon. And suddenly a disturbance: the view begins to waver, and the contrasting lights become blurred. Two defective neon lights with their irregular pulses make the moon turn pale. This light box is a clear tribute to Lampada ad Arco by Giacomo Balla.
Marco lives and works in Florence where he was born in 1979.

Antonia Peon-Veiga Petric, Facing the technique
The stated objective of this artwork is the celebration of the beauty of artificial light. The structural and technological details of the light source (something which we usually do not see) are projected and magnified by a series of different sized lenses. Once they are decontextualized the filaments of the halogen lamps and the components of the RGB LEDs become fascinating abstract shapes.
Born in Santiago de Chile in 1980, Antonia now lives and works in New York.

Barbara De Ponti, Senza titolo
A tight grid of intersecting lines defines the abstract image of data flowing through a light beam enclosed in the optical fiber. The lines are made of folding tracing paper coated with black acrylic paint: the light – of varying intensity – behind the grid filters through the cracks at the folds.
Barbara was born in Magenta (Milan) in 1975; she now lives and works in Milan.

Susanne Rottenbacher, My spectrum has eight pieces
Eight, differently colored light boxes project from a white panel; and each one is fragmented into different, interpenetrating tones. This piece, which is based on color theory, and adding and subtracting colors, changes according to the surrounding lighting conditions. It is a tribute to the Futurists’ innovative use of color.
Susanne was born in Göttingen in 1969, and currently lives and works in Berlin.

Elena Baldelli, Astrolabium - Cieli elettrici
This is a dynamic light box in which – against an astrolabe that comprises the background – we see constellations, nebulas and stars in continuous motion. Thanks to a back-projection and artificial light sources (LED) the observer can follow the swirling, rotary and always different motion of the electric sky.
Elena was born in 1983 in Savona where she lives and works today.


CATHEGORY LIGHT SCULPTURES

Riccardo Fraconti, No Future for me
This “light sculpture” made entirely of recycled and recyclable plastics and illuminated by LEDs is a self-criticism of the light bulb itself expressed as a luminous projection. No future for me (echoing the Sex Pistols) makes a statement about Edison’s invention just when it is going to be abolished in favor of more environmentally compatible light sources.
Riccardo lives and works in Sesto San Giovanni (Milan) where he was born in 1984.

Diego Caglioni, Preghiera
One computer mouse is attached to another face to face and both hang from the ceiling, suspended on their own cables. This describes the “raw” material of this installation, where light is simply the red glow emitted by the optical sensor on each mouse. The artist uses several components hanging at different heights, but all within reach of the user who is invited to join hands around this totally contemporary and technology version of the votive lamp. 
Diego was born in 1983; he lives in Bergamo where, after having completed studies in the field of biotechnology, he is now attending the Accademia Carrara.

Martina Della Valle, Lithofanie
The Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting (1910) states: “The shadows which we shall paint shall be more luminous than the high-lights of our predecessors”. Martina Della Valle translates this prophecy into a small, rough iron light box; the unstable artificial light sources inside fleetingly reveal an image hidden on the surface of a porcelain sheet. 
Martina was born in Florence in 1981, and now divides her time, living and working in Milan, Florence and Berlin.

Mikayel Ohanjanyan, Senza Titolo
Cleverly positioned mirrors at the base and top of a ladder made entirely of white neon tubes create infinite reflections. The endless zigzag generated by the mirrors also captures the observer who sees the object at mid-height and creates a feeling of alienation.
Mikayel was born in Yerevan (Armenia) in 1976.

Renzi/ Dragoni, DareDateallaLuce
Making an explicit reference to Giacomo Balla’s painting Numeri innamorati, Renzi and Dragoni have created a luminous sculpture made of colored Plexiglas numbers – numbers that compose the artist’s birth date: 18.7.1871. Indeed a brilliant way of GIVING LIGHT A DATE.
The members of the Renzi/Dragoni duo are Nicola Renzi (Perugia 1972) and Andrea Dragoni (Perugia, 1969).