My Wastebook Friends in mostra al Forte Prenestino il 7 dicembre 2016 in occasione della presentazione del libro “Anime Elettriche” del collettivo Ippolita.
[English Below]
My Wastebook Friends nasce dalla consapevolezza della perdita dei nostri Sé nella discarica della rete. O per meglio dire, dalla nostra inconsapevolezza di questo processo.
Inseguiamo la visione di una terra promessa dove le nostre aspettative di amore e felicità saranno finalmente realizzate. Lasciamo andare alla deriva brandelli dei nostri corpi.
Lasciamo che i nostri organi smembrati nutrano l’algoritmo del capitale: i nostri volti ingoiati da google, i nostri desideri masticati e sputati per creare profitto.
Come un entomologa ho raccolto frammenti di questi corpi, li ho nominati, classificati, stampati, strappati con lo scotch e ricomposti: un occhio per una bocca, uno sguardo per un’emozione, un fucile per un iPod.
In ogni collage una nuova creatura prende vita, tutti insieme loro sono i my wastebook friends.
{gallery}wastebookfriends7dic{/gallery}
My Wastebook Friends takes inspiration from the experience of the loss of our “authentic” selves in the daily minutiae and exposures of social network sites.
We chase the vision of a promised land where our longing for love and happiness will be fulfilled. In fact, the scattered images of our body parts are nothing but quantifiable bits whose circulation feeds the growth of algorithmic capital. Our faces are googled, our skins are indexed, our desires are constantly put to work, yet we cannot opt out of our drives.
My own obsession has grown in and through these happy-go-lucky interactions and self-representations. Similar to an entomologist, bent on collecting and examining insects, I collect scattered body parts. I name them one by one, print them on paper sheets, and carefully detach them with transparent tape one strip at a time. Then I recompose the strips on stronger paper. I combine related and incongrous pieces: an eye with a mouth, a gaze with a mood, a rifle with a headset. With each decollage a new creature takes life: all togheter they are my wastebook friends.
No digital technology involved. The technique (which apparently has no name) was born with the letterist artist Gil J Wolman, member of the Letterist International. Jim Leftwich, experimental american poet and important member of the Asemic Writing movement, handed it on to Marco Giovenale (asemic artist and italian poet). Giovenale passed it on to my friend, artist and poet Fabio Lapiana.
Needed: a wall, some nails, an hammer. Some light.