CITAR-J, JOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE ARTS
(upcoming) “Art, Error and the Interstices of Power” in CITARJournal – Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts, edited by Jorge Cardoso, vol.7. (eng)
The Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts (CITARJournal) is a peer-reviewed publication that results from a commitment of the Research Center for Science and Technology of the Arts(CITAR) to promote knowledge, research and artworks in the field of the Arts. The Journal provides a distinctive forum for anyone interested in the impact which the application of contemporary Science and Technology is having upon the Arts. The Journal is published by the Portuguese Catholic University, under an open access policy.
ABSTRACT: The artistic use of error has a long history, and this essay attempts to reconstruct the genealogy of the relationship between artists and error. It then goes on to analyze the characteristics of technological error used in art along with the reasons for its appreciation by media artists and media activists. Finally, it contextualizes the practices of media art and media activism taken as exemplars in questions bound to contemporary technological power. The aim of this theoretical trajectory is to understand how error is used, for what purposes, and with what outcomes. Further, its goal is to determine whether and how the current popularity of technological error is bound to a certain relationship with technological power, the characteristics of which are control, regulation, prevention, and normalization.
MNEMODRONE – CHAPTER TWO
MNEMODRONE – CHAPTER TWO, (Emilio Vavarella and Daniel Belquer, ed.), independent publication, developed for ISEA2015 – 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art, Disruption, NYC, US. (eng)
MNEMODRONE is a transmedia memory-collecting project based on drone technology that investigates the social and philosophical issues of coexistence between humans and artificial intelligences. This publication is the documentation of MNEMODRONE’s CHAPTER TWO, and you can buy it here.
Hz Journal
“Darwikinism: Between Trollism and Error” in HZ Journal, n.20, June 2015, Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden. (eng)
Technology has changed the way we read. For example, eBooks have changed the publishing industry; but also reading a hypertext, instead of a classic text, with the use of links to navigate from one page to another, is a big change in the way we approach and consider a text. Technology has also changed the way we write; we can think of, for example, the use of ‘grammar check’ in Microsoft Word and the difference between making a grammar mistake while writing a virtual text compared to writing with a classic typewriter. The virtual space in which people write today is a place where you can easily go back and change your content an infinite number of times without leaving any sign. In addition, technology has changed the way we learn, for example with e-learning. The field of digital humanities (and many related topics such as “open access to materials, intellectual property rights, tool development, digital libraries, data mining, born-digital preservation, multimedia publication, visualization, GIS, digital reconstruction, studies of the impact of technology, technology for teaching and learning, sustainability models and media studies”. is constantly developing new theories and tools that will shape the future of education. Experts expect a significant change in the next twenty years (including huge digital libraries for easier access to automatic language translation); a change that can be compared to the effect that ‘big data’ has had on scientific research.
MNEMODRONE – CHAPTER ONE
MNEMODRONE – CHAPTER ONE, (Emilio Vavarella and Daniel Belquer, ed.), independent publication, developed for CultureHub, RE FEST: Art + Technology Festival, NYC, US. (eng)
MNEMODRONE is a transmedia memory-collecting project based on drone technology that investigates the social and philosophical issues of coexistence between humans and artificial intelligences. This publication is the documentation of MNEMODRONE’s CHAPTER ONE, and you can buy it here.
fragments
fragments, by Emilio Vavarella, independent publication, New York, 2015.
This publication presents selected fragments of the interviews conducted by Emilio Vavarella at Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center during the development of MEMORYSCAPES, highlighting the poetry of the collected memories.
- The letter F. stands for “fragments.”
- The interviews are not translated.
LEONARDO: THE JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE ARTS, SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
“TRANSICONMORPHOSIS” in Leonardo – The Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology, MIT Press, vol.47, no.4, 2014. (eng)
MNEMOSCAPE MAGAZINE
MNEMOSCAPE Magazine, SHOWCASE, first issue, 2014, pp.160-165
Edited by Elisa Adami and Alessandra Ferrini, MN is a quarterly online magazine dedicated to furthering research into contemporary visual culture and art practices that operates at the interstices of political and historical scrutiny, with a special focus on issues of memory, methodology and the archive.
- Contributors: Alexander Apóstol, Az.Namusn.Art, Giulia Bassi, Lucy Bayley, Yvonne Bialek, Lisa Blackmore, Paolo Chiasera, Ben Cranfield, Alessandro Di Pietro, Wolfgang Ernst, Eirini Grigoriadou, Alana Kushnir, Pedro Lagoa, Lawrence Lek, Robert Luzar, Chris Mason, Anne Massey, Emilio Vavarella.
A GLITCHED DEFINITION OF GLITCH
A Glitched Definition of Glitch is the essay I wrote for the publication A LINKING book, created by CAMPO 12, the first edition of the course for Italian curators supported by the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, in collaboration with the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna and Contemporanea CRT; it was held from November 2012 to June 2013. The group of ten curators, working collaboratively, proposed a reflection on adaptation of curatorial discourse to cultural dynamics tightly bound to daily use of interface technology.
- Theoretical contributions from: Joseph Nechvatal, Riccardo Benassi, Alessandra Donati, Emilio Vavarella
- CAMPO12: Marta Barbieri, Bruno Barsanti, Lucrezia Calabrò, Sara Dolfi Agostini, Alessandra Ferlito, Valeria Mancinelli, Chiara Nuzzi, Marta Papini, Stefania Rispoli, Gabriele Tosi.
ERROR AND METAMORPHOSIS IN NEW MEDIA ART: PERSPECTIVES AND STRATEGIES OF INTELLECTUAL RESISTANCE
Error and Metamorphosis in New Media Art: Perspectives and Strategies of Intellectual Resistance, (orig: ERRORE E METAMORFOSI NELLA NEW MEDIA ART. Prospettive e strategie di resistenza intellettuale). M.A. thesis, advisor: Angela Vettese. Publicly accessible at the Università IUAV di Venezia, Italy.
ABSTRACT: This thesis offers a theoretical and interdisciplinary study of technological error and metamorphosis through the analysis of technological power and a number of new media art practices put in the context of neoliberal network society. This research stems from the need to understand the specific function of technological error in the field of art and its growing importance in the work of countless new media artists. The thesis opens by illustrating a heterogeneous landscape through the study of error in Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, revolutionary political practices, Philosophy of Science, Theology, and Cybernetics, with the aim of establishing the main differences between error in these disciplines and artistic error. It then demonstrates how in art, error is seen as positive and definitional and how artists can freely take possession of and make use of errors that originate in other disciplines. The thesis continues by looking at multiple perspectives on the digital world we live in, and goes on to show how error is at the intersection of a double obsession: increasing productivity and enhancing control over the world and its inhabitants. Technological failure is eliminated or reduced to feedback for the empowerment of the System, or serves as a constant reminder of the need to improve its control. Its danger is its ability to demonstrate the imperfection of the system and its ability to reveal the weaknesses of technological Power. For this reason, new media artists have developed practices that exploit the subversive potential of error, giving rise to practices that share a common goal: the creation of new strategies of intellectual resistance and an openness to unexpected metamorphosis, facilitated by new technological possibilities. The formation of intellectual resistance, online and offline, appears in conclusion with the image of metamorphosis borrowed from Elias Canetti’s work: the essential goal of survival achieved through countless creative endeavors. The thesis demonstrates how metamorphosis is what enables man to resist the power that dominates him, and that the artist is the main creator of such metamorphosis.
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: ERROR: A HISTORICAL-INTERDISCIPLINARY SURVEY
1.1 From Plato to Philosophy of Science
1.2 Hegel’s Path
1.3 Psychoanalysis and the Fertility of Error
1.4 From Hegelian Psychoanalysis to Post-Revolutionary Error
1.5 Christian Religion, Cybernetics, and Noise
CHAPTER 2: ART, ERROR, AND THE INTERSTICES OF POWER
2.1 A Short Historical Introduction to the Errant Artist
2.2 Technological Error: Prepackaged Errors and Uncaptured Errors
2.3 Glitch as Pop and Mainstream Technological Error
2.4 “Let’s Have Fun Confusing Their Systems’-Culture”
CHAPTER THREE: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TECHNOLOGICAL POWER
3.1 Power, Potency, and Systematization of Error in Neoliberal Network Society
3.2 Social Control and Technological Power
3.3 From Disciplinary Societies to Network Societies of Control
3.4 Digital Personae and Future Perspectives
3.5 Perspectives of Resistance
CHAPTER FOUR: METAMORPHOSIS
4.1 Metamorphosis and Anti-metamorphosis
4.2 Metamorphosis in Network Society: From Charles Darwin to Pierre Lévy, Via Ernst Mach and Theodor Adorno
4.3 The Task of the Artist
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
What follows is the summary of the first chapter, and then summaries of the third and fourth chapters.
https://emiliovavarella.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Summaries.pdf
ASKING ABOUT ART
Asking About Art, independent publication under the sponsorship of Iuav University of Venice, curated by Emilio Vavarella and Francesco Nordio, 2011-2014
Asking About Art is a series of interviews that began during the second semester of the academic year 2011-2012, when Francesco Nordio and I took Cornelia Lauf’s Visual Arts Laboratory at Iuav University of Venice. We decided to interview some of the most prominent ex-students from our program, asking them about how they make art today, so that, through their answers, we could put together a fragmented landscape of ideas, intellectual positions and perspectives.
Our questions:
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How do you establish a process of artistic creation in regards to your work? [orig. Come si costituisce il processo di creazione artistica in riferimento al vostro lavoro?]
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What are the constants and variables, and how much are those factors imposed or spontaneous? [orig. Quali ne sono le costanti e le variabili, e quanto tali fattori sono imposti o spontanei?]
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Which strategies do you follow, what are the cognitive results you obtain, and what is the cultural value of your work? [orig. Quali sono le strategie che seguite, quali sono i risultati conoscitivi che ottenete e qual è il valore culturale del vostro lavoro?]
- How is art made today? [orig. Come si fa arte oggi?]
- Interviewed artists: Roberto Fassone, Nina Fiocco, Riccardo Giacconi, Teresa Iannotta, Clio Kraskovic, Alessandro Laita, Anna Longo, Corinne Mazzoli, Gianandrea Poletta, Luca Pucci, Giuliana Racco, Chiaralice Rizzi, Claudia Rossini, Sottobosco, Elisa Strinna, Chiara Trivelli, Valerio Veneruso, Serena Vestrucci.
- Graphic design: Alberto Casagrande
- Special thanks to Angela Vettese, Cornelia Lauf, Mara Ambrozic and Corinne Mazzoli.
- All the materials included in the publication were gathered during the second semester of academic year 2011/2012.
AUTONOMY AND HETERONOMY OF THE WORK OF MAURIZIO CATTELAN
Autonomy and Heteronomy of the Work of Maurizio Cattelan (orig: Autonomia ed Eteronomia dell’opera di Maurizio Cattelan). B.A. thesis. Advisors: Stefano Ferrari and Chiara Tartarini, University of Bologna.
In my undergraduate thesis entitled Autonomy and Heteronomy of the Work of Maurizio Cattelan, I embraced interdisciplinarity looking closely at a single artist through multifaceted lenses of the history, sociology, and psychology of art, considering the artist’s work as a synthesis of the cultural and media landscape in which he had been immersed. The materials I gathered included exhibition catalogues, scholarly essays, stills from cartoons, reproductions of historical artworks, and reviews in online blog posts, among other things, and I demonstrated how the artist was able to manipulate media attention while also reflecting and synthesizing its mechanisms. In my methodology I drew upon the concepts of two of the founders of my program at the University of Bologna: the idea of “open work” by Umberto Eco and the philosophic “anti-dogmatism” of Luciano Anceschi, as well as the theories of Marshall McLuhan and Walter Benjamin.
INDEX (ita)
PREFAZIONE
CAPITOLO 1: IL TEMPO DI CATTELAN È STORIA
1.1 Ok, il tempo è giusto
1.2 Strategie e carta igienica
CAPITOLO 2: LO SGUARDO DELLA SOCIETA’ SULL’ARTISTA, LO SGUARDO DELL’ARTISTA SULLA SOCIETA’
2.1 Campagne elettorali e arte politica non politicizzata
2.2 Io rubo a te, tu rubi a me
2.3 Prove di disordine pubblico per l’italiano medio
2.4 L’asino laureato e il potere impotente
CAPITOLO 3: L’AUTORITRATTO PSICOLOGICO DELL’ARTISTA
3.2 Espressioni della morte
CAPITOLO 4: AUTONOMIE E ETORONOMIE
4.2 L’ingarbugliato micromondo dei Critici, curatori e galleristi
4.3 La grande mostra e la grande idea e viceversa
4.4 Voglio un Cattelan
4.5 Poetica da realismo capitalista
4.6 Verso nuove letture: Neuroestetica
CONCLUSIONE
BIBLIOGRAFIA