About Me

Hello, I am Massimo Cremagnani and I am an Artist.
. Someone knows me better as a researcher, journalist, teacher or company consultant. Recently I also dabble in interior design.

They may seem to be many ares of expertise for a single professional, but they are all part of a single path of articulated and coherent research, evolved in over twenty years of study and activity. Let's see it in detail.

THE ARTIST

My research on the Figurative Digital Art investigates the technologies that allow its innovation, exploring the different techniques of creation and production and, strangely enough, looking for ways to explain them clearly to all of you. I do it by character, by passion and, when required, also by profession.

Someone also knows me as Capitolouno.
. This nickname has remained with me since the Brera Academy, where in 1999 I presented a thesis on ethics and aesthetics of Digital Art, entitled "Digital Art Chapter One". In the academic field it was the first on the subject and the first on interactive multimedia support, and it earned me the high score with praise.

THE PROFESSOR

During the last years of the Academy I tried the experience of teaching, as an assistant to Computer Graphics and Digital Photography courses. The experience has been renewed over the years, as teacher of Special Graphic Techniques at the Accademia Santa Giulia in Brescia, at the Padre Monti Institute in Saronno and at the Rizzoli Institute in Milan, as well as various seminars and conferences on Digital Graphic Art.

THE JOURNALIST (and Author)

In short, Capitolouno has remained. Also because that thesis was not the only "first chapter" in which I tried my hand.
For example, already in '98 I had created Computerarte?, the first Italian column of Digital Art for the magazine Computer Graphics & Publishing, of which here you can see some examples. The question mark has been put to emphasize the research, the investigation, the doubt if Digital Art existed and/or had sense to exist.
Here I published my first Manifesto dell'Arte Digitale, which later evolved into the most complete work Manifesto Amplificato dell'Arte Digitale Figurativa, in which I highlighted in a deliberately courtly decalogue what can and cannot be considered Digital Art.

As journalist I had first-hand news and software and hardware tools of all kinds, with which I continued to experiment first-hand, in an apolitical way and disconnected from the traditional canons of mass production.
. Even after the closure of that lovely magazine I continued the research, collaborating with other publications such as Graphicus and Pubblitec.

THE RESEARCHER

Testing from scratch all sorts of technologies and materials that required and promised more than was explicitly stated, I realized that the available evaluation methods were not sufficient. So I created the first perceptive printing test, called Elite PrinTest, through which it is possible to identify the practical and aesthetic values in every printing situation, well beyond the simple four-color printing or the very common coated paper.

Elite PrinTest tables use, in addition to classic elements such as fonts, lines and color samples, my digital paints. The presence of infinite formulas of digital stroke, shades of all kinds, strong contrasts and risky overlaps, the printing is put to the test.
Unlike more classical tests, the visual impression must continue to impact the observer, with a greater communicative fidelity than just evaluating resolution and color consistency.

Elite PrinTest has allowed many printing machines to go beyond the limits and, in some cases, to highlight unexpected printing characteristics that were then used as added value.

Later I faced other challenges such as exploring new visual formulas in laser printing combined with special papers and, in the inkjet sphere, working on all kinds of material.

THE CONSULTANT

In order to evolve the Classical Arts into Digital Arts, I got involved with theories and tools created for other purposes, such as graphics, publishing and visual communication. This multifaceted path led me to face different professional experiences, including theatrical scenography, packaging, branding. Collaborating with companies and agencies also learned the chain processes in the different sectors of communication. To put it all on display I also learned a bit of Web design.

In 2008, after more than ten years of research focused on digital printing, it was time to pull the strings. So I dedicated myself to the realization of Digital Printing Chapter One, the first text ever able to present all the useful information for everyday use, aesthetic understanding and countless professional purposes of each form of digital printing.

Also from a purely artistic point of view, many years of research had left their mark. After moving from realistic photo-retouching to extreme manipulation, from classical painting to digital painting, from photographic printing to the most sophisticated visual effects with unusual materials and out-of-range colors, I decided to take away everything that now seemed superfluous.

Without figuration, without photography, without image acquisition but only by generating colors and shapes on the computer Ch'Art, the Absolute Zero of Digital Art was born.

(The Artist and) THE INTERIOR DESIGNER

Like many innovations, also Ch'Art was born by chance. Once again I had to carry out some printing tests, and the starting point was always the usual sad boring color palettes, those with colored squares identified by their four-color match.
I took these palettes and put them in a virtual blender at minimum speed, stopping when my subconscious, thanks to art education and pareidolia, appreciated the result. My old and everlasting passion for surrealism was coming back to the surface.

I Ch'Art have no shape if not attributed by the observer. They can have all the colors of the world, but only the semi-casual arrangement glorifies their aesthetic effect, a bit like the abstract art of the middle of the last century, but entirely digital. And since digital means versatility, and since the results were beginning to charm an increasingly heterogeneous audience as they did with pop-art, I followed the wave of digital: automation and versatility, adaptation to the user as the geek say.

Ch'Art is not always pure Art, but is best expressed as Applied Art.
. But unlike the principles of Art massification developed in the Bauhaus, where it was a matter of refining projects for an assembly line able to churn out "artistic products" all the same, today's mission is absolute diversification.

So, without neglecting my other artistic, didactic and philosophical initiatives, today I'm here to propose unique and extremely personalized furniture, custom designed according to the tastes and needs of the client: wall coverings or furniture wraps, decorative panels, fabrics, clothing and whatever else digital technologies allow me to realize.

Today's mission is absolute diversification

In a world dominated by information technology, a technology that deals with automating and solving with precision every kind of production process, the task of the contemporary Artist is the re-insertion of the concepts of Originality and Personalized and Customizable Aesthetics, to erase the domain of copying in favor of a prolific evolution of individual taste.

I thank everyone who will follow me in this new adventure.