Davide Allieri creates an undefined place of speculation in his current exhibition “47°24’35’’N / 9°44’20’’E.” Despite a title that records the factual coordinates of Kunstraum Dornbirn, this mysterious environment plunges viewers into a liminal, unmappable scenario dominated by two core elements—MECHA_01 115MZ (Protective Suit) and Hypocenter System (both 2026). Fused together by cables, these alien, futuristic sculptures suggest powerful technologies, yet they lie dormant. Submerged within a grayish-green atmosphere that instills discomfort, like the accompanying soundscape by Francesco Peccolo, they occupy a space of unknowing unique to each visitor, an internal landscape somewhere between a possible end and a potential beginning.
Robert Preece: What was the idea behind “47°24’35’’N / 9°44’20’’E?” Was the installation, as the title coordinates suggest, inspired by the interior space of the Kunstraum Dornbirn?
Davide Allieri: My idea was to create an immersive environment—something to truly dive into, an in-between space, a suspended field beyond ordinary time and space. From the outset, the project was grounded in this approach, and the central question became how the exhibition hall itself could be transformed into an internal landscape—one that reconfigures perception from within. This also meant asking how architecture might be turned into an active instrument rather than a neutral container, and how its specific conditions—particularly the behavior of light and sound—could be reactivated as part of this spatial reorientation.
I started to add layers and think in different directions. I tried to understand the light sources. The windows were covered, and the space was completely blacked out. At that point, I designed the sculptures, the two big protagonists of this non-narrative environment. Once I had resolved the lighting and the sculptures, I began to establish a dialogue between architectural elements and objects. Finally, I developed a special sound that holds and delineates the entire liminal space.
I used to describe all my visions as anti-narrative. I believe in sensations and live experiences. I am interested in what visitors feel and what they reconstruct during a visit to my environments—how they engage with objects and installations, and how they can rewrite the story beneath the surface in a personal way. I don’t aim to explain meanings; instead, I prefer to provide clues. I believe that gaps are more important than access points—if we think of the exhibition as a book, then in my project, it is as if some of the pages have been torn out. In this way, I free the works from any prescriptive direction and leave them open to interpretation. My goal is to resist linearity, literalness, and rhetoric.
RP: Could you explain the ideas behind MECHA_01 115MZ (Protective Suit)? Among other things, it reminds me of a downed futuristic drone. It’s a rather disturbing mechanical/alien/industrial-looking form.
DA: MECHA_01 115MZ (Protective Suit) is an undefined entity—possibly organic, or a mechanical-technological exoskeleton. It could function as a protective system, like a military defense drone that moves on four legs and can be operated remotely. As an empty shell without organs, it refers to a form of existence in which the biological and the technological are no longer distinguishable. At Kunstraum Dornbirn, it is installed on the floor—asleep, on standby, and probably awaiting possible reactivation. It is made of translucent fiberglass and painted in three layers of different colors.
All of my sculptures are empty shells: they don’t have a solid internal structure. I have always been inspired by insects and their cuticle—a material composed of chitin and proteins that forms their external shells. This is why I like fiberglass: it combines opposites. To make fiberglass sculptures is to produce solid objects that are hollow inside—shells that can protect and isolate at the same time.
RP: What does the glowing, circular Hypocenter System (2026) represent? Is it a threshold, a time capsule, or something else; or have you again left any potential meaning open-ended?
DA: Hypocenter System is a 600-centimeter-high fiberglass ring. It may function as a kind of futuristic communication system or a static parabolic antenna. It could also appear as a “Stargate”-like portal to unknown universes. I keep its meaning open to interpretation; my works are deliberately multifaceted. They are immediately recognizable, but they unfold over time: as you move around them and approach them more closely, layers begin to emerge beyond the surface. Something remains unseen or unsaid, and the viewer completes the work through imagination, connecting the gaps in perception. This is why I am interested in open forms—works that allow viewers to construct their own readings, visions, and memories around a shared experience.
RP: The eerie, all-pervasive green glow that dominates this installation completely transforms the space. What was the intention, and did it take time to get the color right?
DA: Color was the decisive element. On my first visit, I immediately understood that I needed to transform the space and not just place sculptures on the floor. So, I started to think about using the sculptures as focal points of light. Inside the Hypocenter System ring, I installed LED strips on the internal fiberglass face, drawing the eye directly to it: when you enter the space, your gaze falls immediately on the large glowing ring at the back. I mixed that soft tone with specific green neon tubes, their color drawn from the natural hue of the polyester resin that I use to make the fiberglass sculptures. I arranged them in a V-form over MECHA, integrated into the architectural elements of the space and intertwined with the cables. Neon tubes are always part of my installations and my favorite way to light my works. I chose this particular green because it works on two levels simultaneously: on one hand, it evokes biology and nature (small flower beetles, moss-covered crabs, leaf mantis heads); on the other, its density and saturation carry an artificial, synthetic quality. It distorts the perception of every other color in the space. Emerging from the surrounding darkness, it becomes a character in its own right; it was essential to make the whole system complete.
RP: What about all the cables? They don’t appear to be functional. Is there a conceptual purpose beyond how they contribute to the feeling of mystery?
DA: The cables are physically connected to MECHA_01 115MZ (Protective Suit)—a weave of black rubber extensions, like a spider’s web, that creates relationships between organism and architecture, drawing lines and shadows through the air. They are an essential part of the mise-en-scène. I am passionate about cyberpunk aesthetics—films, graphic novels, narratives—and these elements heighten the sense of cyber-futuristic chaos. They emerge from the walls, from the MECHA itself, and spread in all directions like a parasitic network. Mystery is certainly part of it, but more than that they suggest something unfinished, a system still in the process of expansion.
RP: Could you tell us a little about the soundscape that accompanies the installation?
DA: Italian sound designer Francesco Peccolo helped me to develop an immersive soundscape capable of translating my environmental vision into a lived experience. For this project, we started to think about radio interferences interspersed with cosmic and abyssal noises—something sharp yet deep: a sustained, glitched texture in an obsessive, disturbing loop. The sound is played through two speakers positioned at the entrance, at low frequency, and it carries visitors through the entire space. As with the visual elements, its meaning will shift depending on who is listening—their background, their associations, their fears. Together, light and sound transform the space into something you not only look at, but also move through and feel.
RP: What was the installation process like? How long did it take to determine where to place the works?
DA: When working on a site-specific environment, I tend to arrive at the venue with most of the details already mapped out in my mind—specific ideas about lighting, placement, and color. I take precise measurements, calculate the electrical layout, and plan the neon installation in advance. But I always leave room for a degree of improvisation. For the Kunstraum Dornbirn exhibition, I visited the space a couple of times beforehand, and during the installation itself, I spent hours inside working out every detail. A few nights before the opening, I came back alone, around midnight—I wanted to absorb the atmosphere of the space, the fears, the sense of abandonment and emptiness.
Davide Allieri’s “47°24’35’’N / 9°44’20’’E” is on view at Kunstraum Dornbirn in Dornbirn, Austria, through June 21, 2026.
