-1 Digital Lab
22.86 x 11.43 x 11.43 Viewing Conditions
Matteo Bettini en Sonia Gorecka, 2026
22.86 × 11.43 × 11.43 is a space for artistic dialogue established by Matteo Bettini and Sonia Gorecka in 2023 and continuing to the present day. The project traces the history of an erratic boulder located at the foot of Mottarone in the north-western Alps. A natural landmark and spiritual site, the boulder was gradually dismantled over the last century for the extraction of its valuable pink granite. Today, only its name on maps, fragments from the cutting process, and traces within local memory remain.
Erratic boulders, rocks displaced from their original geological context, have long been surrounded by myths and stories attempting to explain their unusual presence and movement. Through archival material, geological research, microscopic imaging, and conversations with local inhabitants, the project explores the changing material and cultural relationships surrounding the lost formation.
Viewing Conditions is a video installation developed by Matteo Bettini and Sonia Gorecka during the -1 residency. Through microscopic imaging, the work examines the granite at a crystalline scale, using one of the few surviving fragments of the original boulder as both subject and medium.
The installation reflects on the parallel between cutting stone for extraction and cutting it for observation, considering seeing and measuring as preconditions for different forms of value production. While one produces material value and the other scientific knowledge, both transform the stone through acts of division. Rather than recovering the lost landmark, Viewing Conditions proposes another image of it, treating the stone as an optical interface through which its hidden structures become visible.
Matteo Bettini and Sonia Gorecka
Matteo Bettini is an information designer and visual artist striving to understand what lies between the map and its territory. Through different mediums ranging from graphic interfaces to videos and installations, he explores the narratives, ambiguities, and power structures embedded within visual information.
Sonia Gorecka is a multimedia artist and designer exploring contemporary translations of the aesthetics and meanings of local heritage, through remediation processes that bridge analogue and digital realms. Her practice combines textiles, image-making and software-driven visual experiments. It unfolds through fragments of lore, informal archiving and speculative gestures that blur belief, memory, and materiality.