Superfetazione a camme, 2001

In the glossary of technical terms of architecture, surface finishing refers to the part added to a building after its completion according to the original design.
“A posteriori surgery spoils the aesthetics and consequently disfigures the surrounding space.”
The superfetation is added to the existing at a later moment, without any need, to become a useless, superfluous or pleonastic intervention. Far from the Baroque superfetations that burst into the austere naves of the Romanesque basilicas, the cam of Cavenago is related to the architectural rigour that characterizes the mezzanine of the Manzoni theatre built in the 1950s.
The cam, which mechanically equips the rotating axes to transform the uniform rotational motion into an alternate straight motion, here wraps one of the pillars, the vertical axis of the architectural space: the work is active and parasitic on the structural system. At man height, the volume with its eccentric shape and rounded shape interferes with the surrounding spatial equilibrium and with its movements modifies the perception of the architectural system.
With each movement it transmits the motion to redefine the freedom of inconstancy. The design and simplification of forms, the relationship and interaction with the context in which it is inserted, remain fundamental elements of the artist's research.
The extreme consequence of the process of mutation of static elements into movable elements is the cam surfacing made for the Teatro Manzoni in Monza.
An installation that transforms one of the supporting pillars into the axis of rotation for a cam – the element that transforms the circular motion into a straight line – perfectly functioning.
It is put into action by a simple push, which makes the observer as well as performer also spectator of an act of different duration each time.

The title borrows a technical term from architecture: ‘superfetation’ refers to an addition made after a building has been completed – a retrospective alteration which, in the building tradition, is regarded as an aesthetic flaw, a superfluous element not envisaged in the original design. Cavenago chooses precisely this word to describe his intervention on one of the load-bearing pillars of the theatre’s mezzanine, built in the 1950s: a parasitic addition that wraps around the structure’s vertical axis, without affecting its structural function, yet without even seeking permission from its architectural austerity.

The added element is a cam, a mechanical component which, in industrial technology, transforms the uniform rotary motion of a shaft into a reciprocating linear motion. When applied to the pillar, the cam becomes a volume with an eccentric, rounded shape, positioned at eye level and fully functional: a simple push from a visitor is all it takes to activate the mechanism, transmitting the movement along the pillar’s axis and, for the duration of that oscillation, altering the perception of the entire surrounding spatial balance.

It is a work that fits naturally within the broader discourse Cavenago pursues on the theme of architectural support, but here with a further twist compared to the pillars on wheels in A sostegno dell’Arte. There, the pillar was made mobile in its entirety, theoretically capable of being moved elsewhere, thereby betraying its load-bearing function. Here, the pillar remains perfectly still and structurally intact: it is not the load-bearing element that moves, but a mechanical parasite that clings to it, using it as its axis of rotation, and imparts movement not to the support itself, but to that which has settled upon it like a functional outgrowth. The pillar, in other words, continues to support the building; but it also becomes, in spite of itself, the unwitting driving force behind a movement that is not its own and which transforms the way it is perceived by the observer.

The gesture of those visiting the space—that simple push required to activate the cam—transforms the public into both performers and spectators of an event whose duration is ever-changing, never identical to itself: a relational principle that we already find in Visita guidata, where a visitor’s private gesture produced a public effect through a hidden structural mechanism. Here too, the movement does not arise from an autonomous motor, but from the human body that chooses to interact with the work, making every activation a unique event, even though the mechanical device remains the same.

Superfetazione a camme thus represents, in Cavenago’s own words as conveyed by Luigi Di Corato’s commentary, the extreme consequence of a process whereby static elements are transformed into moving ones—a process that runs through his entire body of work: no longer merely the monument or pillar rendered unstable and mobile in its entirety, but real, historical and structurally flawless architecture, colonised by a small mechanical mechanism which, without compromising its statics, calls into question its perceptual immobility every time someone pushes it.