Massimo Briani

My photography experience started from the fundamental contribution of François Soulages, author of the new edition of “Esthétique de la Photographie”. I follow a theoretical approach to photography considering paradigmatic “Research” and “Project” as fundamental activities that must always precede shooting. The instant as “instantaneity” is confronted with a temporal ambiguity. We encounter daily a liquefaction (see also: Liquid Modernity by Z. Bauman) in space-time fractals (see also “The fury of Images” by Foncuberta), which the photograph itself cannot contain. It cannot be bound to an immobile cut in time, because the ontological meaning of the photographic image “slips”. It shuns the past, dated and past anchors linked in particular to Barthes’ thought that require a re-definition other than the “mortal perception” of “La Chambre Claire”. I therefore undertake to redefine them through a critical study, between deconstruction and restructuring, we find new formalisms capable of pushing photography beyond the boundaries of the moment. We therefore compose “photographic journeys” with a poetic of “drift”, “lack” and “uncertainty” where the photographs thus constitute a “deficient” event (obviously, refer to the huge bibliography that we will find in the various photographic projects, left us in inheritance from philosophers such as Deleuze, Derrida, Artaud, Levinas, Foucault and others). We observe circumstances in which it is the “tension” that determines them and no longer the mere “constituency of composition”. The instance thus manages to become a yearning for a profound search for meanings, always renewed, towards a “good” photography.

In the photography field I was finalist, for three consecutive years, at the SI-FEST International Photography Festival (Italy):

• 2020: Portfolio “HOMENESS (IN LOCKDOWN)”;
• 2019: Portfolio “LIQUID ETHEROTOPY”;
• 2018: Portfolio “GLOBALIZING CONTAMINATIONS”.

My reportages and photographic projects have been showed in various exhibitions:

 I had the opportunity to give several photography lessons in the following workshops:

• “RIMINIZATION” at “Third Italian Conference on Social and Environmental Accounting Research”, Catania, 2010.
• “RIMINIZATION” at the Conference “Sustainable Tourism: Issues, Debates & Challenges”, Crete & Santorini, 2010.
• “RIMINIZATION” at the Conference “Researching Coastal and Resort Destination Management: Cultures and Histories of Tourism”, Girona, 2009.
• “RIMINIZATION” at “Convegno Internazionale “Turismo sostenibile come leva di sviluppo locale”, Bicocca University in Bicocca, 2009.
• “IN-ATTESA DERIVA (UNEXPECTEDLY ADRIFT)” at “IX Conference of the National Interdoctoral Network in Urban Planning and Territorial Planning”, Florence, 3rd-4th April 2009.
• “MARGINAL LANDSCAPES”, at “SEMINARIO sulle PERIFERIE”, Florence University, 13 – 20 November 2007.
• “THE UNESCO RAMSAR SITES (LAC DEBÒ E WALADÒ DEBÒ) – MALI” at Forum on Cooperation for Peace and Solidarity, Florence, December 18th, 2006.
• “THE UNESCO RAMSAR SITES (LAC DEBÒ E WALADÒ DEBÒ) – MALI” at “FORUM UNESCO – 11TH INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR UNIVERSITY AND HERITAGE”, 11-16 September 2006, Florence University.
• “THE UNESCO RAMSAR SITES (LAC DEBÒ E WALADÒ DEBÒ) – MALI”, La Sapienza University of Rome, 2006.
• “SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURES IN RAW EARTH” at “First International Research Seminar of Forum UNESCO – Architectural Heritage and Sustainable Development of Small and Medium Cities in South Mediterranean Regions”, ETS – Pisa, 2005.