Stefano Contiero’s Vita (2019) presents six curated compositions that translate philosophical reflections of time’s passage into dynamic geometric arrangements. These works, developed through Processing’s algorithmic framework, manifest as cascading triangular forms in tones of green, navy, and white that intersect and overlap across neutral backgrounds, creating visual narratives of perpetual motion and transformation.
The repetitive layering and transparent overlaps within Vita function less like static reconstruction and more like temporal composition, echoing both the kinetic abstractions of Futurist motion studies, particularly Balla’s sequential depictions of movement, and the systematic investigations of early computer art pioneers like Vera Molnár and Manfred Mohr, whose algorithmic works explored systematic transformation and temporal progression. Where Balla captured discrete moments and Molnár investigated computational permutation, Contiero composes with time itself, creating algorithmic scores where each transparent layer acts as a temporal notation. This approach bridges historical avant-garde and contemporary digital methodology.
This early collection establishes Contiero’s foundational methodology of curated selection from generative possibilities, introducing the concept of editorial intervention within algorithmic creation that would define his mature practice. The work’s conception of movement as life’s essential quality reaches its most intimate expression in Battito (2023), where biological rhythms themselves become the source of algorithmic movement and temporal composition.
The viewer encounters in these cascading forms an invitation to contemplate their own relationship with change and continuity. Vita suggests that the beauty of existence lies not in stillness but in the graceful acceptance of perpetual transformation, creating a meditative space where algorithmic precision becomes a vehicle for reflecting on what it means to be alive in constant motion.