Piancavallo

The human eye naturally identifies what it sees as real, as existing. Photography, and consequently video, have therefore always been linked to reality, possessing the ability to reproduce what our eyes are accustomed to perceiving and associating with reality. With the development of these arts, however, we have discovered deception: the photographic appearance caught between fiction and reality.

Piancavallo is a documentary film that highlights an alarming climate situation. It chronicles a typical day at the Piancavallo ski resort, which is forced to rely on artificial snow on a regular basis due to rising temperatures.

Our gaze, having become all too accustomed to perceiving reality, falters in the face of a photograph; our awareness of its artificiality is tempered by the allure of reality, and we are drawn into the illusion.
Artificial snow is a metaphor for the photographic documentary, where everything we perceive visually automatically becomes real, without any capacity for critical judgement.
Rather than reacting, human beings surrender helplessly without questioning whether their choice is the right one. Artificial snow, exploited for pleasure and profit despite its incompatibility with the surrounding environment, is a clear warning sign of a climate crisis now spiralling out of control. This deceives human behaviour, which instead of resisting allows itself to be swept away by the intoxicating power that humankind has arrogated to itself: the power to decide what is real and what is fiction.