Supercosmo

Supercosmo transforms the promise of winning into a programme of escape, in which the imagery of space offers individual desire an elsewhere already coded by gambling. In the «Scratch & Win» series, Zampogna presents luck not as an exceptional event, but adopts the ticket’s visual grammar as the structure of experience. The cosmos thus becomes a media mythology available for consumption: adventure, discovery and the overcoming of limits are compressed into the mediocre catharsis of a prize, while stellar distance coincides with the closed circuit of economic aspiration.

Enlarged to occupy the entire field, the cosmic graphics do not provide a background for the figures, but place them within a predetermined commercial itinerary. The shuttle promises passage, yet its trajectory is halted by three men, one facing forward and two turned away, who transform departure into collective waiting. The central face retains an uncertain recognisability, while the two bodies seen from behind deny the viewer any reciprocity of gaze: personal identity appears subordinate to the anonymous function of the player. The superimposition of bodies, vehicle and planets also erases coherent depth, making cosmic space, promotional surface and everyday scene coincide.

The work brings the contamination between «real reality» and «media reality» that runs through Zampogna’s research to an ironic conclusion. Here, elsewhere offers no release from the present because it has already been organised by the signs that administer hope and probability. The title magnifies the promise to the scale of the universe, but what remains is a group standing still before the image of its possible escape. Desire survives, although deprived of initiative and made legible only through the impersonal code of gambling.