Ricordi (2019) acknowledges the paradox that memory, our most precious possession, rewrites itself each time we visit it. This collection of six curated works translates the Portuguese concept of saudade into algorithmic form, exploring that untranslatable melancholy that accompanies our relationship with the irretrievable past. Through titles like “Ricordo d’Infanzia,” “Ricordo di Sfida,” and “Ricordo d’Agosto,” the artist maps the geography of personal recollection through pastel hues that dissolve into softly unraveling structures that embody memory’s essential unreliability.
Contiero’s algorithm captures something equally elusive: the way our most cherished moments become more mythological than factual through repeated mental visitation. The collection’s generative process mirrors the neurological mechanics of memory itself, where each recall event slightly alters the neural pathways that store our experiences. What begins in sharp focus gradually dissolves into haze, yet gains emotional weight as clarity recedes.
This investigation into impermanence positions Contiero within a lineage of artists fascinated by time’s relationship to consciousness, from Proust’s literary excavations of involuntary memory to Gerhard Richter’s blurred photo paintings that hover between documentary and dream, and contemporary digital artists exploring data persistence and decay. Ricordi’s particular contribution lies in its refusal to mourn memory’s mutability, instead finding beauty in the very instability that makes our past perpetually renewable, forever capable of generating fresh meaning through each encounter.
The collection establishes memory as foundational territory for Contiero’s ongoing practice, demonstrating that our most profound experiences may not be what happened, but what continues to happen each time we remember. This early investigation into memory’s fragmentary nature would find fuller expression in Frammenti (2021), where the artist would visualize the actual process of memories scattering and reconstituting, transforming abstract psychological concepts into dynamic visual metaphors. “Ricordo d’Infanzia” was among the works presented at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai in 2021.