Cadùco
Multimedia A/V installation, Live Electronics
with Marco Erpete, curated by Elisa Zanta
Arco Iris R, 04/02/2026
Cadùco is a space of vertical tension, in which the videos by Marco Erpete and the live electronics by
Pierpaolo Ovarini intertwine in a single upward thrust, fragile and obstinate at the same time.
The project starts from the figure of a maranza riding a bicycle through the outskirts of Bologna,
pulling wheelies. In the video Libra the action, slowed down and repeated, becomes a gesture suspended in time in which
balance, control and challenge coexist. The wheelie thus turns into an upward movement that,
precisely because of its precariousness, carries with it an immediate sense of resistance and assertion.
In the making process, the difficulty in finding someone willing or able to perform that
gesture leaves a subtle trace in the final result: a deliberately artful montage,
characterised by bright colours, strong contrasts and almost grotesque details such as the fluorescent yellow ski mask
and the garlands decorating the bike, which further accentuate the deterioration of the figure
itself. The image thus becomes an amplified reflection of the initial tension, returning it in a
form that is all the more fragile the more it is exposed.
Opposed to this work there is a second video, Tentativo di schianto (Attempted crash): a fixed shot in which
the artist pedals trying to crash into a wall, repeating the attempt several times. The gesture,
simple and direct, introduces an irony typical of Erpete's language, which at the same time
lightens and intensifies the scene, as if the search for the maranza were reflected in the paradox of an
effort destined from the outset to fail.
Sirena is the live electronics by Pierpaolo Ovarini that extends this tension. A continuously ascending Shepard tone,
built from a super saw, a timbre emblematic of the euphoric club culture
of the 2000s, grows without ever reaching a real climax. Emitted through
loudspeakers arranged vertically, the sound crosses the space like a flow in constant increase,
maintaining the illusion of a movement without end.
Cadùco thus becomes a reflection on caducity as a force: that which lasts briefly, that which lives on the
threshold of the temporary, can turn into image, vibration, presence that endures precisely thanks
to its fragility.