In a present marked by speed, information and connectivity, values inherited from internet technology, art spaces around the globe exhibit projects that coincide in form and content, as a symptom of a natural and necessary reappropriation of their world.

Of these topics, there is one that should be addressed in connection with the exhibition. It is a paradigm that has been with us for centuries, which achieved greater acceleration in the industrial revolution, and which has reached an unsustainable level since the neoliberal era: the individual versus the big machine. Just stating it is overwhelming. However, as expected, after the commitment and insistence on operating under said model, the world of work, arranged as the great battlefield, today shows us a clearly collapsed system where the individual has been surpassed by the phenomenon of hyperproductivity.

It is in this context that it seems convenient to read Stefano’s work. The structures that he presents to us immediately transport us to other possible worlds that, moreover, are not very distant from us. In his own words: “in this look at the future we find that the body is expendable and technology plays the role of containing a human identity […] With these speculations I seek to put the understanding of our body in crisis to position it as a colonized and vulnerable object”.

It should be clarified that what the artist postulates is in no way exaggerated or pessimistic, quite the contrary. His speech is based on fundamental traits of the human being such as sensitivity and the need to imagine, as well as the understanding of the transcendence of the body. This suggests a space for reflection on the path towards a new paradigm: other bodies will be born from our bodies, as in a chrome garden. This is the perpetual cycle of life, the true great machine.

× Danilo Filtrof