Artists

Fausto Balbo, born in 1970, lives in Garessio (CN) Italy.

He has always been passionately interested in sound and the construction of unusual musical instruments, and over the years his research has led him to the creation of the current sound sculptures. After a period of experimentation and study, he began to develop an audio-visual form of expression in which the soloist, the performer, is no longer present, and is replaced by autonomous sculptures. A human presence is necessary to launch the process: from that moment on, the score, execution and performance will be determined by “imperceptible and unfathomable” factors.

He personally curates every step in the construction of his pieces; aesthetically, he takes inspiration from the components that will become part of the work itself, and from the physical and mechanical requirements of the action that it is designed to perform. Sometimes his works begin with sketches that allow him to assess the final proportions, on other occasions he makes them directly, shaping the components that he has available.

He likes using found materials as a way of documenting the things that we are abandoning; he re-uses different types of object, privileging retro-technology, changing their use (rebirth, survival, metamorphosis), often highlighting what remains concealed by the exterior of the items that are around us in everyday life, dedicating particular attention to the energy, electromagnetic waves and sounds that they emit.

The part of the process described up until now represents the initial act of creation; this is followed by his desire to “reveal what is imperceptible and unfathomable to the naked eye”, an area of sensory perception in which sound and electromagnetism are observed by means of the movement of components that interact with these forces, audible sounds generated by an action triggered by a sound that we cannot hear, a cause-effect relationship in which kinetics and cymatics mutually interact.

Balbo likes the idea of miniaturizing events linked to existence, the life of the cosmos and an imperfect equilibrium in which everything occurs through probability, and not through certainty. In his works, he invites spectators to reflect on the actions of the invisible puppeteer, on what cannot be seen by the unassisted eye, on synaesthetic perception, on playful actions with a child’s curiosity, on letting one’s thoughts wander within the world of sound. He wants to encourage a desire to see the work in action, to discover the result of its operation. He considers sculpture solely as a means of revealing that which would otherwise be imperceptible.