La Ricerca

Giuseppe Petruzzellis – Director Notes

I met Luigi Lineri and his work at the beginning of 2015. A meeting that sparked unprecedented wonder and a long series of questions. A spark from which this film’s development began.

One of the aspects that immediately struck me about Luigi Lineri’s work is the collective dimension that permeates his entire oeuvre. Through his stones, Luigi conducts an existential investigation that he describes as a “pilgrimage to the sources.” He refers to prehistory, to the collective infancy of our species. He attempts to reconstruct the lost memories of humanity’s dawn, imagining the key steps that, in a distant time, gave rise to technique/technology, art, the symbolic world, language, and all those characteristics that make us human.

Luigi’s monumental work is a formidable tool for investigating these universal themes. His artistic work intertwines with the insights of important contemporary philosophers and anthropologists (Bataille, Shepard, Harari, Bachelard, just to name a few). In his installation, he managed to materialize a vast field of anthropological, philosophical, and even political themes. Many of these contents are extremely current and urgent, such as our conflictual relationship with the ecosystem.

These are the foundations upon which the formal elements of the film rest. Recontextualized archival materials and experimental audiovisual sequences work in an allusive and evocative way, adding layers of emotional and conceptual exploration to the film’s arguments. It’s a continuous and open dialogue with Luigi and with the audience. This film is a legacy of Luigi Lineri’s life commitment to art, intended as a way of serving the universal human community. His message is spontaneously directed at all of humanity. To understand which path to take in the present and in what direction to imagine the future of our species, I find it fundamental to know ourselves deeply. In this quest, one can recognize themselves as part of a single great family, connected at all times and in all places. I believe that this sense of human community is essential to directing our species’ path toward more conscious, peaceful, ecological, respectful, and constructive perspectives.

“La Ricerca” aims towards the ideal perspective of collective empowerment: reworking lost memories to build a better future.