Today, I had the opportunity to look at Luca Nino Antonucci’s work from his current show, COLLAPSE, at the Wire + Nail Gallery (San Francisco, CA) showing until August 21, 2011. The content of the show is based on light from 13.5 billion years ago. Using advanced photographic technology, which includes an infrared camera along with a multi object spectrometer indicating distance, Antonucci creates an array of paper based work that illuminates (pun intended) what the human eye is unable to see, perhaps, even fathom. The show is accompanied by a book project created in collaboration with Daniel R. Small called “First Light” that explains, in laymen’s terms, the process behind the art. The show itself is a great example of what can be done with photography when an artist uses it to create something seemingly unimaginable and enigmatic. Yes, you have to think about the work and not just look. It begs the viewer to wonder, which is the beauty behind the work. Although the viewer is well aware of light’s inevitable demise, there’s an amorous and sentimental feeling gleaned from the work.
My favorite pieces from COLLAPSE: The White Embossments of Star Clusters *sigh*
Learn more about Luca’s work by visiting his website here.
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Dorothy R. Santos
Dorothy R. Santos (she/they) is a Filipino American writer, artist, and educator whose academic and research interests include feminist media histories, computational media, critical medical anthropology, technology, race, and ethics. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz as a Eugene V. Cota-Robles fellow. She received her Master’s degree in Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of San Francisco. Her work as been exhibited at Ars Electronica, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the GLBT Historical Society.
Her writing appears in art21, Art in America, Ars Technica, Hyperallergic, Rhizome, Vice Motherboard, and SF MOMA’s Open Space. Her essay “Materiality to Machines: Manufacturing the Organic and Hypotheses for Future Imaginings,” was published in The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture. She is a co-founder of REFRESH, a politically-engaged art and curatorial collective and serves as the Executive Director for the Processing Foundation. She is an advisor for Brooklyn-based arts and tech organization POWRPLNT and Bay Area-based arts organization slash arts.
dorothy r. santos 
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