Elisabetta Di Maggio: Mapping the Air

This project revolves around a theme central to Elisabetta Di Maggio’s art: the communication networks that serve to transmit information. When we think of circuits or webs, examples that spring to mind include the complex venations of leaves, the tracery of lines on human skin, the routes of subway trains, or the intricate shape of a nerve cell: upon close examination, these seemingly disparate things echo each other in many ways. Drawings of the synapses in our brains, for instance, resemble the roots and branches of trees, as meticulously detailed as illustrations in an old botanical treatise. The delicate filigrees of the plant world and the channels of the body suggest connections, reminding us of the intricate networks of human communication.

It does indeed seem to be “mapping the air,” so difficult to detect are the threads and circuits in which life on earth unfolds. This means everything which sustains it or which governs the activities of nature and humanity tends to be organized into pathways and networks that cannot be seen or perceived, but ultimately prove to be the key structures supporting and linking the energies and entities of the world.