Studio Visit - A curatorial project for the Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève

I'm proud and happy to announce the launch of Studio Visit, my new curatorial project commissioned by the Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève for its online platform, the 5th Floor.
Studio Visit invites artists to allow us an access to their desktop studio and their working process. “Why?” – you may wonder – “we haven’t seen but desktops along the last year; desktops with speaking faces in online classes, streaming conferences, TV programs; give us something real!” In Studio Visit, the desktop studio is shown off as the real space where an artist’s practice manifests. The focus is both on its furniture – files, tabs, programs – and on the artist at work – their favorite tools, their rhythm, their automatism, the way they find a balance between focus and distraction, between managing and creating, between online life and work. Half documentary, half performative, Studio Visit is a huge dive into an artist’s mind, and an effort to capture how artists are performing their daily routine in the here and now.
The project is introduced by a curatorial statement released in the same way - a screengrab video in which I write an invitation letter on Google Docs. Six videos have been commissioned to James Bridle, Petra Cortright, Aria Dean, Oliver Laric, Eva & Franco Mattes and Lu Yang. A new studio visit will be availble each Thursday, from February 25 to April 1, 2021.

Studio Visit - Lu Yang

Lu Yang (born 1984 in Shanghai) is a multi-media artist based in Shanghai. Mortality, androgyny, hysteria, existentialism and spiritual neurology feed Lu’s jarring and at times morbid fantasies. Also taking inspiration and resources from Anime, gaming and Sci-fi subcultures, Lu explores his fantasies through mediums including 3D animation, immersive video game installation, holographic, live performances, virtual reality, and computer programming. Lu has collaborated with scientists, psychologists, performers, designers, experimental composers, Pop Music producers, robotics labs, and celebrities throughout his practice.
Along this studio visit, we share Lu Yang's desktop while he's adjusting a 3D urban environment inhabited by a giant female figure.

Fresh and stale news...

(✿◕‿◕) On March 19, 2021 at 6 PM, I will have an online conversation with young Italian artist Giulio Scalisi, as part of the series Sul contemporaneo, organized and moderated by curator Laura Barreca for the mudaC contemporary art museum in Carrara (I). We will discuss about Giulio's work and about ghosts, notifications and images in the flow in our beautiful Romance language. The conversation will be streamed on the mudaC's Facebook page.

┬──┬ ノ( ͡° ل͜ ͡°ノ) In this interview made by Bianca Felicori for Domus Magazine and published on February 15, 2021, we discuss about the evolution of work, the death of free time, the occupation of domestic space and other themes addressed in Hyperemployment, the book recently published by NERO as the final output of the Hyperemployment annual programme. Available in Italian as well!

(=◉ᆽ◉=) I've been invited by The Blank Contemporary Art to contribute as an advisor to Premio Matteo OIivero, a prize where the winning artist is asked to produce a permanent installation for the little city of Saluzzo (I). Fingers crossed for Federica Di Pietrantonio and Michele Spanghero, pay a visit to their websites if you don't already know them!

*:･ﾟ✧(=✪ ᆺ ✪=)*:･ﾟ✧ TBD Ultramagazine is a great publication made by an amazing group of young people. Invited to contribute to their new issue about Operational Images, I wrote about Trevor Paglen's new series Bloom, wondering why these beautiful, overwhelming pictures of blooming trees are (willingly) unable to capture the fragrance of life. The publication is available in print, but the digital version of the text will be online here very soon.

♥*♡∞:｡.｡ I had a long conversation (Italian only) with art writer Luciano Marucci on hot topics such as the virtualization of exhibitions, online communication, artificial intelligence, digital preservation, presence and distance along the pandemics. The interview has been published on Juliet art magazine (issue 200), and is digitally available here.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ Finally, if you didn't get your copy of Hyperemployment yet - "the book that all of today’s “horizontal workers” should read" according to Domus - be sure to check out at least ALGOREGIMES: the long conversation between media scholar Felix Stalder and the artist group !Mediengruppe Bitnik commissioned for the book has been made available online by NERO Magazine (in English).