Flows, gravity and chaos: an artistic investigation into atmospheric phenomena, matter and cosmology

Martino Allegretti

This research explores the dialogue between the individual and natural phenomena through an artistic process that focuses on flow as a dynamic and generative element. The interaction between water, pigment and support-usually 50% or 100% cotton fibre paper-is configured as a field of visual investigation in which chance and physical forces play a decisive role. The work begins with the use of watercolour, the movement of which is influenced by both natural and industrial elements, such as stones or artificial structures, which alter the liquid's path and colour distribution. A fundamental aspect of the research is the investigation of the relationship between the flow of water and atmospheric events. The direct intervention of rain, wind and humidity introduces unpredictable variables that transform the painting process into an open and constantly evolving experience. The idea of flow is thus configured as an essential artistic element, capable of reflecting the changing nature of matter and time. From these experiments, the research extends to the study of gravity and its implications in the movement of pigment, drawing parallels with cosmological dynamics such as black holes and white holes. The action of the gravitational field and the tension between attraction and expulsion become visual metaphors that find expression in the creative process. In order to structure and document this investigation, notebooks, notes and parallel experiments are used, which are fundamental tools for outlining a method capable of reconciling individual technique with the randomness of external factors. The aim is to find a balance between control and unpredictability, developing a visual language that restores the interaction between artistic gesture and natural forces. In parallel, the project involves experimenting with materials other than paper, such as textiles, membranes and other porous or water-repellent surfaces. The introduction of these elements broadens the possibilities of interaction between water, pigment and support, generating new visual and tactile effects that amplify the dialogue between matter and physical phenomena. Set in an international context of artistic and scientific exploration, this research proposes an interdisciplinary reflection on the relationship between art, nature and physics, redefining the role of the artist as interpreter of the forces that govern our universe.

This work arises from the need to explore the relationship between artistic gesture, natural phenomena, and physical forces, starting from a reflection on the concept of flow as a generative, dynamic, and unpredictable principle. Water — a primordial and symbolic element — becomes the privileged medium through which to establish a dialogue between human intentionality and natural randomness, within a practice nourished equally by visual experience and theoretical speculation.

This research is rooted in a philosophical tradition that traces its origins to Epicurean thought and the concept of clinamen — the random deviation of atoms theorized by Epicurus and Lucretius — as a principle of discontinuity and freedom within the deterministic flow of nature. This minimal and unpredictable deviation, echoed in modern chaos theories and quantum fluctuations, is translated in the artistic field into a poetics of openness to the unforeseen, where chance is no longer an element to be neutralized but a resource to be integrated and traversed.

Within this perspective, the thought of John Cage is also situated — his work redefined the role of the artist as a facilitator of sound and visual events emerging from the encounter between rule and chance, between organization and indeterminacy. His poetics of silence, listening, and non-intentionality becomes a fundamental reference for conceiving the artwork as an open system, influenced by external, atmospheric, natural, or social forces.

Likewise, the use of materials other than paper (even if not yet practiced) — such as fabrics, membranes, or water-repellent surfaces — expands the research towards a material investigation that engages porosity, resistance, absorption, and the reaction of surfaces to external agents. The artwork thus becomes a field of tension between control and unpredictability, between gravity and lightness, between dispersion and concentration of pigment, also recalling the cosmological dynamics of attraction and repulsion typical of black holes and white holes.

Within this horizon, artistic practice takes shape as a critical and aesthetic space capable of questioning the ways in which we perceive and inhabit the world. Following the reflections of Fulvio Carmagnola, clinamen is read as a possibility of escape from predetermined aesthetic logics and the dynamics of the Fiction Economy, opening up new imaginaries and forms of creative resistance.

The objective of this research is therefore to construct a visual language capable of making the invisible visible, translating into sign and matter the forces that traverse reality — from water to gravity, from wind to light — and redefining the role of the artist as a sensitive mediator between order and chaos, between nature and culture.

Introduction - Clinamen

Exhibition

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