This article constitutes the statement, the philosophical reflection that accompanies my collection, Socratech. The live presentation will take place in July 2026. I trust that you will find both enjoyment and inspiration in its reading because Socratech collection is a refined statement itself.

Giotto’s power, in the popular imagination, was his ability to draw perfect circles. As a kid, I believed it, because the circle is inherently perfect, simply by how it appears in geometry.

Let’s say I had one eye closed, and when you look with only one eye, you can’t properly gauge measurements.

Even before one notices it, failing to gauge measurements indicates a characteristic of visual perception: the absence of a vanishing point.

It is obvious, however, that when we are able to take real measurements, we are observing the way an illusion is generated, or how the illusion has been generated, based on the vanishing point or how it disappears.

In the case of architecture, the vanishing point refers to the area where a building is constructed, which must correspond to the observer’s perspectival illusion for the best and safest possible result.

The same applies to my creative process. There is no vanishing point, not even for shadows and lights, because there is no illusion at all; each form and each element assumes its existence in the most natural way, whether the forms are abstract or figurative.

These possibilities are ensured by the choice of certain materials and mediums, and they pass through inner perception, the process of what is seen outside.

If the observer of the element matches their own perception of external geometry in relation to the circle imagined and seen in Mind, then the eye must correspond to its own necessary knowledge and perceptual structuring of the future, like that of each other organ of the body, as if it were seen within the mind.

Thus, the organs of the body, in the position we assume in a space while we are moving, also determine how we perceive them through the circle, and consequently, how we perceive the environment in which we move, even before noticing it.

This happens because a circle is touched by infinite points, but the term ‘infinite’ is a perspectival/grammatical/human constructed illusion; it does not exist out of the word itself.

Not even in probability. ‘Infinite’ is instead a term that indicates the center. ‘In’ as in ‘inside,’ and ‘finite’ as in ‘circle’, and it is obvious that one cannot, nor is it necessary to calculate, whether by definition it is within the finite or is infinite.

https://www.albertoballocca.com/alberto-ballocca/socratech

An example of symbolic sublimation is expressed with the Sema-tauy symbol (or sma-taui, or sema knot), an ancient Egyptian symbol composed of the intertwining of two plants, that, as two sparks, link our perception to a univocal sign representing two engraved plants to deduce, by diluting, trachea and arteries images onto one element.

As every hieroglyph carries both performed signs and intellectual concepts, simultaneously, we have to decorate ourselves with leaves instead of diamonds, because nature, as culture, is a mademoiselle bedazzled with gemsleaves, and manifests a basic concept of compositional elements isolation, according to which Natural dimension is not something that can be defined by just a cultural approach without noticing how this approach is something that defines everything else.

A compendium of impulses through the fonetic similitude and graphical assonance between words 'socialies' and 'socialize' evidences an important clue of peculiar linguistic mechanism that comes from the island where every new pun is coming to life, a world that excludes sterile robotic techniques impositions, but becomes a generating part of it, matrix of intelligence manifesting meanings as spiritual thrusts.

My creative approach is a medium between real life and studio decomposition. I tend to explore this kind of membrane that divides my inner perceptions from the outside world sight.

My technique is diachronic and cyclical, I tend to apply unconventional mediums usages and approaches when I'm at work aim to generate something unexpected always linked and following my archetype; initial idea and sense of self both on figurative and abstract approaches. I'm passionate about ancient cultures, wild natural environments and their connection within my physique, and installing materials brings the most powerful and succesfull sublimation onto this process.

- www.albertoballocca.com -

• Sculptures

Artwork, text and edit by Alberto Ballocca, contemporary artist based in Italy, Torino.

“Cybernetics” derives from the Greek kybernētēs (translated today as helmsman or ruler), a word and concept invented by Aristotle to define a specific system of control for human communication, namely, language itself.

κυβερνήτης - Ciberneta

This is why today we associate technology with the compendium of electrical engineering and programming languages. This ancient word has nothing to do with the collection of printed circuit boards, cables, smartphones, televisions, microchips, touchscreens, pixels and electronic elements that today, 2,800 years after Aristotle, we quickly imagine when we talk about ‘Cybernetics’.

By contemplating nature and its cycles, each people/state/community was imagined as a ‘cyberneta’; they had to guide life towards their own, autotelic improvement.

A bit like, of the boat (the state), the Ciberneta, is the people, not a single human being.

Ciberneta is a work that exists in three different versions. On canvas, on paper and semi digital. Each version is entitled as linked to the title of the work itself, being this concept very different from the one we do know nowadays;

the swith is deep.

Identity became an ‘Hidden’ (Ty. Ty.) and Y became η the lost letter Eta, pronounced during centuries as Eè, so ( I ) — T, according to ancient Egyptian syntax rules used by archeologists for transliterations, identifies a plural of feminine potencies such as in the name Nefer(tyty), that as a proper name means ‘The Best Beauty among all Beauties’, has arrived.

κυβερνήτης - Ciberneta

Get in touch with the Turin based artist Alberto Ballocca via email ' balloccart93@gmail.com ' for more philosophical insights on studio research.

• www.albertoballocca.com

• Ciberneta // Greek Philosophy within your Smartphones

• Arteaporte

  
  

Orama - ὅραμα 2.0

Sentry & SyntaxClock Mixedmedia. Multiple version & collectible support material included 48x33 cm - 19.7" x11.7"

https://sites.google.com

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Launched in November 2023, Orama project sold-out multiple times.

After three years of re-editing of different editions, especially of the phygital work 'Orama' due to the success this collection encoutered, Alberto Ballocca presents a brand-new serie of pieces linked to the same source of inspirations of the previous collection, adding new elements of research, multiple collaborations and the continuos partnership with Treedom platform in order to keep on re-foresting the world through the lens of his creative process.

"Orama ( ὅραμα ) is a greek translation of word ‘vision’ and, and as between two lovers, this vision of Nature becomes a mirror for all those spiritual elements that inhabit my gestures and impulses."

A green growth develops on an ocher background, dissimulating the divine figure that man pursues in his relationship with nature.

Slow drawing and cutting processes first and a quick compositional decisions after scanning draft and sketches, a statuary icon and vegetal patterns, a mental object of investigation about the relation that ancient people had within natural environments, especially through art and natural depictions within an hidden aesthetics sublimation.

Orama is a greek translation of word ‘vision’ and, and as between two spirits, this vision of Nature becomes a mirror for all those inner-most elements that inhabit new gestures and impulses.

Reflected onto an atavistic and perpetual self-reflection as a doppler effect, the hidden secret require our attention onto balancing our impulses, and so on I tried to do with the composition of this collection.

Trying to define my creative process always for a better manifestation and committment, I hope our sensibility onto our natural background will achieve more concreteness.

Differently from the original project 'Orama', Orama - ὅραμα 2.0, explores new elements of research related to the city of Moncalieri, Turin' largest province.

The first project, elaborated through a body of work of pieces on paper, was focused upon ancient and archaic Greek poems and myths, ranging from Socratic interludes up to a singular Hesiod mythological excursus.

This project will embrace a new serie of hystorical, floreal and faunistic features related to the medieval city of Moncalieri.

For each work that enters a collection, a new tree will be planted accordingly to the client's request.

This collection opens up with a mixedmedia painting on canvas and close down with a unique installation.

All works are elaborated with drawings, video art, digital tool, clay, found objects, mixedmedia paintings. Each piece reports to the Parco della Rimembranza and around, the largest park of the city that embraces, with its 600.000 mq, both Turin's hill and Moncalieri's hill.

Flora & fauna, inspirations of royal families from the 19th century back to the ancient Egyptian compendium, come to discover the variety of Orama - ὅραμα 2.0 and get in touch with Alberto to acquire your work.

One has been already collected.

Orama - ὅραμα 2.0

Sentry & SyntaxClock Mixedmedia. Multiple version & collectible support material included 48x33 cm - 19.7" x11.7"

https://sites.google.com

Get in touch via 'Balloccart93@gmail.com'

Alberto Ballocca | Brush.bio

Based in Italy, Torino. 'Ancient cultures, natural patterns & Jungian theories' Alberto Ballocca (b. 1993 - Turin, Italy) is an artist whose work emerges from an intuitive and emotionally charged process. Rooted in layered composition and guided by instinct rather than a singular formative moment, Ballocca's practice reflects a deliberate surrender to the unknown.

https://www.brush.bio

Orama - Alberto Ballocca

Orama. A green growth develops on an ocher background, dissimulating the divine figure that man pursues in his relationship with nature.

https://www.albertoballocca.com

Read carefully: Click on link above to browse the original collection or the current one and get in touch via mail to purchase your work. Up-on specific requests, each work can be tokenized on different chains with respect of the currect price of the token and artist's current market value. Volatility is not considered as a singular and specific element to define a different price on the physical artwork. Once the client acquire the token, the physical work will be delivered.

A.i. vs Socrates compendium incorporates a series of artworks developed with the help of the A.i. agent DeepSeek.

While searching for a specific detail to complete the composition, the A.i. agent addressed different new directions that helped me to discover unique coincidences giving me so much more time to search in other directions too.

I believe this is the most correct A.i. usage as each artists should implement in their processes. Socrates is the most complex character in terms of philosophical and philological speculations, so I used some sillogistic socratic methods in order to expose A.i. to a continuos paradox upon topics of research.

Each work incorporates a small part that comes from this source of inspiration.

Ten Artworks, texts & research by Alberto Ballocca

Artist Statement

Figurative vs. Abstract.

To inform or to give meaning.

Two sides of the same coin.

One of humanity’s most crucial goals today is understanding the distinction between them. Yet, every debate on this subject reveals more about the speaker than the topic itself. To know that you do not know something does not imply a disregard for history or the contingencies of what one seeks to understand, nor does it justify everything under the banner of a model.

Rather, it means approaching experiences and narratives with suspended judgment, aiming to learn rather than obscure the necessary conditions for knowledge.

But these, after all, are just words.

These works challenge the functionalities and ground-basis of the artificial intelligence in relation to human spirit and implement different of my philosophical essays through studio art practice, revealing a small part of the real nature of consciousness through high-tech agent limitations.

These works are results of the research and a long dialogue I had with the A.I. in relation to knowledge, bias, perceptions, character of Socrates and ancient Platonic logic as written in ancient philosopher poems.

If the only thing we are certain of, which is certainly knowing that we know nothing, can be considered irony, then, whoever does not know even a single detail about anything, knows everything better than the Artificial Intelligence. Or, conversely, if exists someone capable of knowing as many things as Artificial Intelligence, he/she would find neither reason nor emotion in putting them notions together in the best possible way.

These are just words, and machine learning is built upon them.

Now, it’s obvious that learning occurs only and exclusively when one does not presume at all to know the nuances of something one want to learn, yet this may be true only when one's attention is directed toward a person who is integrated into speaker's own cultural system.

‘Asking for permission’ or ‘Acting without permission’.

Artworks included in this serie depict an agent’s stance eerily similar to the necessary retreat from evidence, typical of someone who realizes they’ve presumed wrong or misinterpreted the question as an accusation or something akin. Since it’s neither of those, it’s clear that the model is dysfunctional unless confined to receiving and dismantling terms within un-ambiguous, objective, not subjective, parameters. If words are generated from a database based on words I type, then the agent should consider infinite nuances for every single word, not each possible connection throughout syllables or letters.

Yet often, the opposite happens. To know more than one’s interlocutor is possible only if the subject at hand is unclear to the listener, and what the speaker means is not understood by both the A.i. and Socrates.

For example, there was no missing permission, not in my questions, nor in what my question might have implied.

This is the trick, but clearly, the agent failed to consider it off of model's limitations.

FINAL ITERATION

VIEW THE ENTIRE COLLECTION

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Alberto Ballocca - Contemporary artist based in Italy

Specialized in ancient cultures, natural patterns & Jungian theories.