Sociological or psychological reasons are beyond my ability and willingness to describe the subject.  But the basic idea is that the malaise of society close to us is often worsened when we don’t know how -or don’t want- to link our emotional state with the reality, with the objective truth, with the perception of where and how we live.
Keeping your feet on the ground is the opposite of bewilderment. A starting point.

First exhibited in Genova (IT), then the photos went to Chramerhuus gallery in Lagenthal (CH) for a group exhibition which the above images refer to.

Technical details

The photos are digital images shot with an iPhone and directly processed through ShakeIt app that can produce Polaroid like images with different kinds of framing border (I have chosen the Polaroid 600 type).

Their printed dimension is the real dimension of a Polaroid 600. The photos are finely framed within a museum quality thick passepartout and fixed on a second rear cardboard with a repositionable adhesive. No glass is put over the photographs that are printed on cotton paper Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. Edition of 5 copies per photo. Titled, dated, numbered and signed on verso.  A sticker on the back of the frame reports what is also written on the print verso.

Price is 80 euros each photo.

The project:

Generally speaking we like watching Polaroids which make a connection with pictorial, artistic, smiling images of fine personal panoramas. However, the making of these fake Polaroids is not intended as a joke to somebody, it is a way to make an open call to watch, to keep the eyes open, to keep this reminder with you and learn to deal with reality.

The photos of this project go through three steps of mutation, or apparent change of reality:
1) aesthetic change (less intelligible and more pictorial because of luminosity, contrast, tone modification, vignetting, etc. done by ShakeIt app)
2) formal change (Polaroid format renders the image as an instant evanescent note, apparently changing / turning away part of the reality contained in the image, including a denunciation of something)
3) iconing (the way used in framing the photos is meant to turn up the iconic level of the Polaroid, enhancing its fetish part, and doing so, partially removing the character of the content)

Man Ray pointed out that a technique more complaisant the taste of people allows the transmission of ideas otherwise unacceptable. This project possibly includes a personal transcription of that idea.

All photos copyright Paolo Saccheri.

The book containing all the photos of this project is visible on Blurb Books at this address: http://www.blurb.com/b/4654871