MATERIAL TRANSFORMATIONS FROM EPHEMERAL STATES

MATERIAL TRANSFORMATIONS FROM EPHEMERAL STATES

  1. Introduction This research is grounded in the hypothesis that matter—particularly in its liquid and powder forms—is not a static entity but a process in continuous transformation. As stated in the original text, “matter, especially in its liquid and powder forms, is not a static entity, but a process in continuous transformation.”
    Natural liquids and powders, originating from domestic, alimentary, environmental, and atmospheric contexts, are understood as dynamic systems capable of generating form through elementary physical phenomena such as evaporation, sedimentation, coagulation, crystallization, oxidation, surface tension, and molecular interaction. The artist does not intervene as a modeller but as an activator of conditions.
    Form is not imposed; it emerges from interactions between materials, temporalities, and environmental factors. This approach is situated at the intersection of:
  1. Theoretical Foundations

2.1. Matter as an active agent The research adopts a perspective in which matter possesses its own agency.
As the text affirms, “liquids and powders are not passive tools, but co‑authors of the artistic process.”
The final form results from a negotiation between artistic intention and material behaviour.

2.2. The temporality of form Form is not immediate; it unfolds over time.
The artwork is a temporal event, not a finished object.
Each sheet, solid, or sculpture retains the traces of its own becoming.

2.3. Processuality as aesthetics Aesthetic value does not lie in formal perfection but in the complexity of the processes that generate form.
Cracks, tensions, stratifications, and deformations are not flaws but constitutive elements.

2.4. Everyday materials as philosophical matter The use of domestic, alimentary, atmospheric, and residual materials (coffee, milk, wine, oils, infusions, environmental dusts, organic residues, natural pigments, meteoric waters) introduces a reflection on the materiality of the everyday and its capacity to become an aesthetic phenomenon.

  1. Breadth of the Material Repertoire The research employs an extensive repertoire of materials, divided into four principal categories.

3.1. Organic liquids

3.2. Industrial or processed liquids

3.3. Organic powders

3.4. Mineral and environmental powders

  1. Activation of Natural Processes The methodology is based on the controlled activation of elementary physical phenomena:
  1. Formation of Formal Typologies

5.1. Sheets (membranes) Sheets are produced through:

5.2. Solids (compact masses) Solids derive from:

5.3. Abstract sculptures (hybrid forms) Abstract sculptures emerge from:

  1. Hybridization and Advanced Stratification This phase represents the innovative core of the methodology. Final works are constructed through:
  1. Positioning within Contemporary Artistic Research The methodology engages in dialogue with:
  1. Methodological Conclusion The methodology “Material Transformations from Ephemeral States” proposes:

PART II

Why the Artist Transforms the Ephemeral: Theoretical Foundation of the Practice

The artistic practice presented here arises from the need to interrogate the nature of ephemeral materials that permeate contemporary daily life. Liquids and powders—often perceived as waste, residues, marginal or consumable elements—are removed from their destiny of impermanence and reinserted into a process of transformation that renders them artistic supports, surfaces and volumes capable of receiving writing, painting, engraving, or modelling. The artist becomes a mediator between what is destined to disappear and what can become form.

  1. Transforming the ephemeral: a gesture against obsolescence Contemporary culture is characterized by an incessant production of ephemeral materials: liquids that evaporate, powders that disperse, substances that rapidly degrade.
    The artist intervenes in this unstable flow to:
  1. The particular and the unique as research material Every liquid and powder possesses an unrepeatable specificity: density, colour, behaviour, reactivity, smell, memory.
    The artist does not seek uniformity but the uniqueness of material behaviour. This uniqueness becomes:

Each work is irreproducible because the behaviour of the materials that generate it is irreproducible.

  1. The indestructible as paradox Many ephemeral materials, once transformed, acquire an unexpected persistence.
    Coffee grounds, coagulated milk, crystallized Coca‑Cola, sedimented wine, oxidized oil: all originally unstable elements become, in the artistic practice, layers, crusts, membranes, solids. The artist works within this paradox:
  1. From consumption to support: a semantic reconversion The materials used often belong to the sphere of consumption: beverages, foods, domestic residues, environmental dusts.
    Their reconversion into artistic supports produces a semantic rupture:
  1. Why create artistic supports from ephemeral materials The artist does not merely transform matter: they prepare it to receive new gestures.
    Sheets, solids, and sculptures obtained from liquids and powders become:
  1. A practice that unites transformation and writing This practice does not simply produce forms: it produces conditions for other forms.
    Each support is:
  1. Conclusion: the artist as custodian of transformations The artist who transforms the ephemeral into artistic support assumes a precise role:

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