Living the Sprawl. Conversation with Metahaven
02.11.2019 from 18:00 to 20:00
LIVING THE SPRAWL
Conversation with Metahaven
Introduction by: Leonardo Dellanoce
Teatro del Castello, 6pm
Leading interpreters of the languages arisen with the use of new technologies, protagonists of a research able to range from the world of design to theoretical thinking, Metahaven will discuss for the first time in Italy their latest works in a live debate with curator Leonardo Dellanoce.
Following the LIVING MATTERS project by American artist Claire Pentecost and the conference RETURN TO EARTH, WITH THE BIRDS of Vinciane Despret, LIVING THE SPRAWL is the third appointment of COMP(H)OST, a project that deals with the trans-disciplinary themes of hospitality, exchange and coexistence, cooperation and cohabitation, transformation and fertility, via artistic productions, seminars, workshops, conferences, panel discussions, conversations, and live performances at the Castello di Rivoli and in different locations throughout the city of Turin.
Created as a “speculative design” collective, Metahaven have over time focused on how our spaces are defined by the flow of information and propaganda that, having originated in the digital world, has ended up shaping the concrete reality of our daily experience. Key to Metahaven’s thought is the concept of sprawl: an ecosystem in which different versions of what we call “reality” coexist, and in which so many parallel narratives proliferate that our notion of truth is redefined. So what value does the concept of identity acquire in an environment saturated with mutually contradicting stimuli, starting from the overlap between the old rhetoric of sovereign states and the global scale on which today’s computational apparatus acts?
Starting from their work in the field of documentaries and moving image, the two founders of Metahaven Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden will talk with curator Leonardo Dellanoce (Digital Earth) about their most recent works, touching on themes ranging between art and cinema, design and poetry, and the representation of abstractions, in an attempt to understand how, through an imaginary defined by them as “soft sci-fi”, it is possible to decipher an environment in which nature and culture coincide, and in which it seems to have become impossible to distinguish between facts and fiction, between imaginary pasts and artfully constructed futures.
LIVING THE SPRAWL by Metahaven with Leonardo Dellanoce will take place in conjunction with the “Notte delle arti contemporanee”, with the special late opening of the Castello di Rivoli until 10.00 pm.
The conference is in English with consecutive interpretation: free admission subject to availability.
BIOGRAPHIES
The work of Metahaven consists of filmmaking, writing, and design, and is united conceptually by interests in poetry, storytelling, propaganda, and digital superstructures. Films by Metahaven include The Sprawl (Propaganda about Propaganda) (2015), Information Skies (2016), Hometown (2018) and Eurasia (Questions on Happiness)(2018). Recent solo exhibitions include Version History at the ICA London (2018), and Earth at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2018). Recent group exhibitions include Ghost:2651 in Bangkok (2018), the Sharjah Biennial (2017), and the Gwangju Biennale (2016). Recent publications by Metahaven include PSYOP (2018), and Digital Tarkovsky (2018).
Leonardo Dellanoce is an Italian curator who lives in Amsterdam. In his research he explores technological realities using art and design as navigation tools. He has worked with artists, designers and theorists on various collaborative projects. Among these: Vertical Atlas: a Techno-political Cartography, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (2018) and Digital Earth (2019). He is the editor of the magazine “Volume”, for which he developed the research project Trust in the Blockchain Society.