“Photography continues to point to aspects of the real subject, whatever the real subject is (a landscape, a person etc.), but there is a whole layer of that subject’s activity that photography just cannot represent or get to adequately. Photography is thus an inadequate tool, inadequate to the role it has been assigned by society”.

Willie Doherty, 2000

 

"To the question whether art should intervene or not in political issues I would reply that in every society there should be artistic activities of every sort, if they want to have some 'value'. Between the decorator in a porcelain factory and the passionate agitator there should be a free space. I believe nevertheless that there are times in which artists have to be oriented towards the latter way of expression. Even though they consciously do not want to move away from their aesthetic contents, they should at least intervene with verbal, clear positions wherever the survival of people is threatened by despots. Human beings cannot exist without fighting against injustice and slavery, nor without Fine Arts.”

Günter Brus, 1984

 

In my practice I strive to obtain an emotive response from the viewer in order to highlight the increasingly oppressive presence of corporate power over not just our everyday life, but also its influence inside the creative process itself, where art can be perceived by corporations as just another sophisticated and subtle instrument of propaganda that can be used and manipulated at will, according to their own agenda. My research centres on the effects of corporations and how their lobbying influences political and media decisions. This sphere of control is often extended and focused towards our perception and our critical ability to judge the complexity of reality, sometimes making us believe that uniformity might be a positive attitude: for example, encouraging the idea that consumerism is a way to stand out from the crowd or that independent thought is something related to subversive individuals.

Standardisation as a tool of control and constraint of people into reassuring and harmless psychological and architectural boxes in which any hint of improbable rebellion would be easily sedated. My work tries to suggest these ideas showing sanitised office blocks, censored landscapes and lifeless environments. With my photographs I would like to insinuate a subtle sense of violence in our deeply hierarchical society. I am interested in the point of view of the loser, the marginalised. Often we are forced to have only restricted views, uncomfortable to maintain. In spite of this, I believe that one can take advantage of this apparent fault and use it to observe and understand things in a different, unexpected way.

Gianluca Cosci, 2006