Source: Artemagazine.it – Cesare Catania talks about his sculptural geometries

The two monumental sculptures The Heart of the Earth – Phy Version by Cesare Catania have arrived in Tuscany, spread between the Versiliana Park in Marina di Pietrasanta and the seafront of Porto Azzurro on the Island of Elba. Inaugurated almost simultaneously, the two twin installations will remain on display until August 30, 2025, offering visitors, residents, and tourists a new aesthetic and conceptual experience, where matter merges with digital and art truly becomes “widespread” and participatory. It is the vision of Cesare Catania taking shape: monumental and accessible art, which invites reflection, interaction, and to “play with art.” A vision that the artist, born in ’79 in Milan and who in ’98 enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering where he perfected the study of perspective and axonometry and where he learned to observe the problems and the reality around him by breaking down all figures into simple three-dimensional polygons, told us in this interview.

What does the title “The Heart of the Earth – Phy Version” mean to you and in what way do the two sculptures interpret this vision in the respective contexts of Marina di Pietrasanta and Porto Azzurro?
The title “The Heart of the Earth – Phy Version” was born from a deep reflection on the bond between the human being and the planet we inhabit. “The Heart of the Earth” is not only a physical or geological reference, but a metaphor for the emotional and symbolic center of our relationship with matter, nature, and origins. It is the core of energy and awareness from which everything begins and to which everything returns. With the wording “Phy Version,” instead, I intend to emphasize the physical and tangible aspect of the work, as opposed to its digital counterpart (Digy Version), which instead exists in an immaterial, augmented, and partly encrypted dimension. The suffix Phy speaks of matter, of steel, of weight, of gravity… but also of real presence in public space. The two installations, located respectively in Marina di Pietrasanta and Porto Azzurro, interpret in a complementary way this vision. They are two twin but not identical works, and precisely this difference in similarity is what I was interested in underlining. One dialogues with a cultural park, the Versiliana, rooted in the tradition of poetry and intellectual encounter. The other faces the sea of the Island of Elba, where nature is the absolute protagonist. In Versilia, the sculpture seems to emerge from the greenery like a fragment of geometric thought; in Porto Azzurro, instead, it almost seems that it is about to be absorbed by the marine landscape, with its spheres and pyramids reflecting in the movement of wind and water. Both share a universal message: geometry is not rigid, it is human; matter is not inert, it is sensitive. And through this formal and symbolic language, I wanted to tell a contemporary vision of our planet, where art, technology, and ecological thought merge. The “physical version” is only a first level of reading: beneath the shiny surface of steel moves a digital heart, ready to dialogue with the future.

How does the idea of a “phygital” work come about and in what way does NFT technology enrich the public’s aesthetic experience?
The idea of a phygital work arises from the desire to overcome the physical limits of contemporary art and to create an authentic bridge between what is material and what is digital. I am not interested in using technology as a mere ornament or special effect, but as an additional expressive layer, capable of expanding the message of the work beyond its presence in space. When I speak of phygital, I mean a sculpture that lives simultaneously in two worlds: the real one, made of steel, geometry, public installation, and gravitational weight… and the digital one, in which the same work can be experienced through augmented experiences, interactive content, immersive videos, NFT metadata, and much more. The project The Heart of the Earth – Phy Version is only half of a broader work. Its digital sister, in the form of a dynamic NFT, enriches the work by making it alive, capable of evolving over time and space, dialoguing with people through smartphones, visors, or Web3 platforms. The blockchain code guarantees authenticity and traceability, but above all allows the work to become participatory: the observer is no longer passive, but an active part of the narration. In this way, NFT technology is not a simple “digital certificate,” but a key to access an experiential, poetic, and interactive dimension. Some NFTs linked to this work, for example, allow unlocking unpublished content, such as a poem recited by the sculpture, a three-dimensional animation in augmented reality, or video fragments of the creative process. This phygital approach reflects my belief that the art of the future will be layered, fluid, and increasingly relational. And the public will no longer have to choose between touching with hands or exploring with thought: they will be able to do both, in a simultaneous experience that speaks to the body and the mind, to the heart and to the code.

The two installations are conceived as “a single widespread work”: what message do you want to convey through this territorial and symbolic duality?
Yes, The Heart of the Earth – Phy Version is conceived as a widespread work. Not two distinct sculptures, but two halves of the same heartbeat, two poles of a dialogue that is fulfilled only if one accepts the idea of crossing space and thought to complete it. The choice to install two physical versions of the sculpture – in Marina di Pietrasanta and in Porto Azzurro – arises from an artistic but also philosophical urgency: to stage the tension between places and, at the same time, to overcome fragmentation. I wanted to create a sculpture that is divided in space but that remains united in meaning. Like the human being, who can be geographically dispersed but remain connected by common values, or like hearts that beat separately but seek each other over time. Symbolically, this duality represents the balance of opposites: land and sea, north and south, culture and nature, rationality and instinct. In Marina di Pietrasanta, the work breathes the deep breath of cultural Versilia, of literature and memory. In Porto Azzurro, instead, it opens to the Mediterranean, to travel, to vastness. They are two souls of Italy, but also two universal archetypes: refuge and horizon. The work thus assumes a poetic but also social function: it invites the viewer to move, to seek the other half, to embrace the idea that an artistic installation can live in relational form, not only contemplative. It is also a reflection on identity: what does it mean to belong to a place? And what does it mean to be part of something that extends beyond borders? After all, I have always believed that contemporary art must create connections, not containers. That is why I consider this “double installation” a single work that lives in two bodies: like two banks of a river looking at each other, like two beats that compose a single Heart of the Earth.

In what way can the public interact with the sculptures through smartphones, and what digital content is unlocked thanks to the augmented experience?
The interaction between the public and my phygital sculptures is not only a technological gesture: it is a gesture of relationship, of openness, of participation. I wanted The Heart of the Earth – Phy Version to be a sculpture that “activates” and “reveals itself” when approached with the right sensitivity… and with a smartphone. Through scanning a QR code integrated into the work, the user is transported into an augmented dimension. It is not a simple informative website, but a true immersive portal in which art, sound, narration, and movement intertwine. It is a way to transform passive fruition into an active, engaging, and partly personalized experience. Those who interact with the sculpture can, for example: view three-dimensional animations of the work in AR (augmented reality), superimposing moving elements on the physical sculpture; listen to the narrative voice of the project, with poetic texts that reveal the concept of the work and its hidden meanings; explore exclusive video content on the making-of, on the assembly phases, on the reflections of the artist and the team; collect geo-sensitive NFTs, that is, digital certificates that attest to the experience lived in that precise place, at that precise moment; share the experience in real time, becoming part of an international community that follows the journey of the work in its future stages. All this arises from a very simple principle: art must not only be seen, but lived. And today, thanks to technology, we can offer multiple levels of reading. The viewer can decide whether to stop at the visual impact or to “enter inside” the work, discovering a heart that beats in the digital. My goal is not to amaze with special effects, but to create emotional connections, stimulate questions, offer a slow time of fruition in a world that runs fast. And to do it using the same object that too often isolates us – the smartphone – as a tool to bring us closer to art, and therefore to ourselves.

The project places at its center the concept of “democratic art”: in what way does the choice of public and accessible spaces reflect this philosophy?
Democratic art is one of the pillars of my artistic vision. I do not mean it as “simplified” or “popular” art in the reductive sense of the term, but as art that does not exclude, that does not lock itself in ivory towers, that is not afraid of being shared. In this sense, The Heart of the Earth – Phy Version is a manifesto, not only a sculpture. I have deliberately chosen public spaces, accessible free of charge and integrated into the urban and natural fabric, because I believe that art must return to breathe with people, not only with collectors or insiders. Installing a monumental sculpture in a park or on the seafront means entrusting the work to the city, leaving it exposed to light, to wind, to distracted or deeply present gazes of passers-by. It is an act of trust and responsibility. When I speak of democratic art, I also speak of breaking the hierarchical filter: no ticket is needed, no dress code is needed, no “knowledge of art” is needed to be moved or questioned in front of the work. And this openness does not trivialize, but ennobles the encounter between work and viewer. Because true art – the one that is born from a deep necessity – is capable of speaking to everyone, on different levels but never exclusive. Moreover, the phygital aspect of the work reinforces this mission: through the smartphone, anyone can access content in multiple languages, to in-depth explanations, to personalized interactions. Even those on the other side of the world can “enter” the work through its digital elements, reducing physical but also cultural distances. The Heart of the Earth is a work conceived to embrace, not to exclude. And every embrace is, in the end, a democratic act: two bodies approaching, recognizing each other, ceasing to belong only to themselves. If art can do this – if it can create shared places of beauty and thought – then it still has a fundamental role in our time.

What will be the next international stages of the project The Heart of the Earth and how will the meaning of the work change in the new installation sites?
The Heart of the Earth is a project born with an international and itinerant vocation. The two installations carried out this summer in Tuscany – in Marina di Pietrasanta and Porto Azzurro – are only the first “stations” of a broader path, which aims to touch symbolic cities and extreme landscapes, between nature and metropolis, between places of art and industrial spaces. The next stages will be defined in the coming months, but we are already in dialogue with various national and international entities. Each of the next locations will bring with it a different cultural, geographical, and symbolic meaning. And it is precisely in this that lies the strength of the work: its ability to maintain a recognizable identity but to absorb the context in which it is inserted. In each new installation, the work will be readapted in color, in scale, or in augmented contents, maintaining its geometric framework but opening up to new narratives. Even the digital contents – accessible via smartphone – will be geolocalized and personalized: unpublished poems, ambient sounds of the place, video fragments, or local voices will be part of the experience. The meaning of the work, therefore, does not change in the sense of being distorted, but it enriches, adapts, evolves. It is a work in progress, which grows together with the cities that host it, which responds to the stimuli of the real and digital world. My dream is that The Heart of the Earth becomes a global network of artistic embraces, an installation that – although physically divided – remains conceptually united, as if each sculpture were a cell of a larger organism: our planet, our humanity, our shared conscience.