Dangiuz

di Ivan Quaroni e Linda Tommasi

Born in Turin in 1995, Leopoldo D'Angelo, better known as Dangiuz, belongs to a generation that has been nourished by the subcultures of the net and has been influenced by the online diffusion of aesthetic and musical genres, such as "Synthwave" and "Outrun." These elements have, in fact, contributed to the definition of his style, especially in the visual references to the science fiction of the eighties and nineties. His visions are set in a nocturnal urban congeries, illuminated by holograms and glowing discharges of neon, the scenario of a near-future more than plausible. Dangiuz catapults us, in fact, into the harsh reality of the Conglomerate, the Sprawl of William Gibson's "Count Zero" (1986) or the Neo-Tokyo imagined by Katsuhiro Otomo in "Akira" (1988), a chilling vertical nightmare of elevated platforms and skyscrapers connected by suspension bridges, overlooking an abysmal jungle of street levels. It is, in fact, in a megalopolis reminiscent of Rick Deckard's Los Angeles that his stories are set. His characters, dark silhouettes silhouetted against the intermittent flashes of urban metastasis, inhabit a reality that embodies all the imbalances of late-capitalism: from the fierce social inequalities of the global economy to the immense ecological catastrophe, from the pulverization of the social pact to the control of multinationals, from the post-human connectivity of servant-mechanisms to the cloistered solitude of the individual isolated in his own living cell. It is a world falling apart, a Cyberpunk universe that has recently evolved into a new aesthetic dimension, which began with the work "Wasteland," the description of a world of ruined carcasses.

 Dangiuz x Giovanni Motta – What a dream looks like?

Collaboration between Motta and Dangiuz finds its being both in the form of NFT and as physical work. Motta's inner child is catapulted into Dangiuz's futuristic and convulsive universe. Jonny Boy seems to be almost lost in this futuristic world, and the comparison with a possible future, seen through the innocence of a child, leads the observer to ask questions about current issues, such as environmental impact and the uncontrolled construction of cities.