The project originates, first of all, from Cotognini necessity of widening the perimeter of his work, in order to fulfil the requirement, or rather the duty, of expanding the physical and spatial boundaries wherein his projects are thought and then collocated. The artist, having explored the prodigies of light for years, is brought by his research to the projections and to the mechanisms of the anamorphosis, which are still being tested.

The project goes far beyond the traditional idea of drawing and installation: according to Cotognini, the individuation and the analysis of a place are fundamental, not in order to find a ready-made à la Duchamp – decontextualized objects, artistic space, provocation-, but to find suitable places for exemplary pieces which would show the problems of our current living; pieces bound to the old statute of the Art and the Artist. In this project, the mechanisms coming to life allow small drawings to occupy big spaces, natural views, monuments, even squares; while big visions can be reduced to details and encaged into small magical machineries. As in the spoken language some clear sounds have received from the human free will the capacity of signifying universal concept, so this project is made of projects, apparently random assembly of places, objects, images and vibrations of light, which together will give life to a unitary argument. The preparation of every single project, of every single glimpse and of every creative act demands a strong archaeological and sociological analysis: sometimes the work emerges as a real archaeological evidence brought back to life; the overlapping layers of real places and fantastic images barely make possible to see symbols, perceive movements, and rebuild images and stories often forgotten, sometimes not happened yet.  Everything is born from light; here is the subheading The magic of light, borrowed from the Minim friar Jean-Francois Niceron who, in one of his essays, notably Thaumaturgus Opticus 1648, addressed to an audience of operators and enthusiasts of art, and explained the double benefit, both serious and futile, of the mathematic arts among which the most important is optics. With his optical tools Niceron crossed the Renaissance mimesis of nature, materialising a world of appearances whose rules are not at the mercy of fate, but they find their essence precisely in the cartesian 'esprit de géomètrie'.

In this project, the adaptation of the experiences of Niceron makes possible to transform spaces, misrepresent reality, create multiple effects and generate a proliferation of images that decompose and recompose in a dreamlike atmosphere; the project may aquire various shapes: a monumental projection or a magical lantern developed to make the audience, who is asked to become part of the piece and space itself, dream.

Visual utopias, art as evocation.

Thaumaturgus opticus. "Thaumaturge", a term of rare nobility. Traditionally the thaumaturgical power was reserved for saints or divine kings, but in this project it is reserved for whom is able to observe, together with the artist, the miracle of light and of what it includes.