
Italiano [English below]
È uscita una mia intervista, pubblicata su Arshake, ad opera di Elena Giulia Rossi, ricercatrice italiana, docente e direttore editoriale del medesimo magazine online. L’intervista è stata realizzata nell’ambito di Game Over, progetto, come recita il testo sul sito, “finalizzato alla ricerca e allo studio di nuove «entità culturali», persone, oggetti o ricerche provenienti da diversi ambiti disciplinari (i.e. fisica, bio-robotica, AI, agricoltura, medicina) e al loro traghettamento nel mondo dell’arte)”.
Mi è stato chiesto di parlare della mia attività di ricerca e dei miei interessi transdisciplinari. Di seguito un piccolo stralcio dell’intervista:
Elena Giulia Rossi: Cosa significava occuparsi di arte, scienza e tecnologia quindi, venti, trenta anni fa?
Pier Luigi Capucci: Intorno alla prima metà degli anni ‘80 ho iniziato a occuparmi delle relazioni tra forme artistiche, tecnologie e scienze. Mi sono laureato nel 1985 con una tesi sulle tecnologie di visualizzazione e sull’olografia, una delle prime in Italia. Ho avuto la fortuna di incontrare persone per me importanti, che mi hanno stimolato e invitato a tenere dei seminari al DAMS dell’Università di Bologna, con le quali ho collaborato a dei progetti, tra queste Lamberto Pignotti, Omar Calabrese e Giovanni Anceschi. Contemporaneamente ho partecipato alla discussione nel mondo dell’arte, tra l’altro collaborando per oltre un decennio con Pierre Restany, uno dei più importanti critici d’arte del mondo, con cui c’era una grande sintonia e stima reciproca, che mi ha fatto entrare sia all’interno della rivista D’Ars, che dirigeva, sia di Domus. Negli anni ‘90 ho pubblicato tre libri e iniziato a insegnare stabilmente all’università, alla Sapienza, invitato da Alberto Abruzzese a tenere il primo corso di New Media attivato in Italia, e a Bologna al DAMS. Nel ‘93 ho curato forse la prima mostra di arte interattiva nel nostro Paese e l’anno dopo con i miei studenti abbiamo fondato NetMagazine/MagNet, primo magazine online in Italia. Gli anni ‘90 sono stati un decennio importante per la diffusione delle tecnologie nell’arte e nella comunicazione, c’è stata l’esplosione dell’informatica di massa e di Internet, della computer art, a metà di quel decennio è nata la net.art. Dai primi anni ‘00 si sono sviluppate le forme espressive basate sulla biologia, la robotica e le discipline della vita.
Che cosa significava occuparsi allora di arte, scienza e tecnologia? In Italia solo pochi visionari, tra cui quelli che ho citato, avevano compreso che la creazione, le forme espressive, l’arte, la comunicazione, la cultura, la società…, sarebbero state profondamente influenzate dalla rivoluzione tecnoscientifica. Al di fuori del nostro Paese c’erano eventi importanti ma da noi era tutto in ritardo, ci si scontrava con dei pregiudizi storici, una sfida costante nel corso della mia ricerca. Potrei citare decine di aneddoti. Una volta, nei primi anni ‘90, all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna dove ero stato invitato per tenere una conferenza, alla fine del mio intervento uno studente si è alzato e si è messo a gridare che ero al soldo della zaibatsu giapponese, e, dato che in quel periodo insegnavo all’Università di Bologna, che «ero al servizio di un’istituzione di merda!».
Non si contano invece le volte in cui dal pubblico, e spesso anche dai colleghi, si alzava la fatidica domanda: «Ma questa è arte?» A cui ovviamente nel tempo avevo provveduto a mettere a punto varie strategie di risposta. È stata una domanda molto frequente negli anni ‘90, poi si è fatta via via sempre più rara entrando nel nuovo millennio. È tornata in auge, in maniera meno ottusa, per le forme d’arte basate sulla biologia, sulle scienze della vita, sulla Robotica, sui Big Data, sulla Vita Artificiale e sulle varie filiazioni dell’Intelligenza Artificiale.
L’intervista completa è qui:
https://www.arshake.com/game-over-loading-pier-luigi-capucci/
- Prato, with Roy Ascott, Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci, Researching the future: aspects of art and technoetics 2007
- Trondheim, with Roy Ascott, Consciousness Reframed XI , 2010
- Moscow, with Jens Hauser, Limits of the Human – Living topologies – Nonhuman agencies 2015
- Bruxelles, with Jutta Thielen del Pozo, BOZAR, European Commission AI and Humanities Workshop, 2019
- Ottawa, National Arts Center, Emergent Form, 2018
- Saint-Petersburg, with Nina Czegledy and Olga Kisseleva, International Cultural Forum 2018
- Trondheim, with Andrew Perkis, Aud Sissel Hoel, Jordi Puig, Judith Redi, Konstantinos Chorianopoulos, University of Technology, PhD Commission, 2015
- Bagnacavallo, with Pierre Restany and Malek Pansera, Museo Civico delle Cappuccine, Corrispondenze del sensibile, 1992
- Linz, with Guy Ben-Ary, CellF, 2015
- Ispra, with Freddy Paul Grunert, European Community Resonances Festival, 2018
- Rome, MACRO Museum, Ten Lessons about Complexity, 2018
- Conegliano, demonstration of NetMagazine/MagNet, first online magazine in Italy, Antennacinema Media, 1995
- Trieste, with Luigi Pagliarini and Giorgio Cipolletta, Robotics – Arte e robotica, 2018
- Linz, with Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, Ars Electronica 2009
- Milan, with Haakon Faste, Eva Rorandelli, Cristina Trivellin, Martina Coletti, Studio D’Ars, XXV Premio Oscar Signorini 2008 – Arte robotica
- Reggio Emilia, with Domenico Quaranta, Stefano Coletto, Franco Torriani, Fabio Paris, Collezione Maramotti, 2008
- With a friend, Ars Electronica 2013
- Tokyo, Sony headquarter, 1998
- Venice, with The Pirate Bay crew, Venice Biennale 2009
- Linz, with Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, Ars Electronica 2018
- Pordenone, with Derrick de Kerckhove, Pordenone Design Week 2015
- Moscow, Limits of the Human – Living topologies – Nonhuman agencies 2015
- Carrara, with Franco Berardi (Bifo), Giacomo Verde, Tommaso Tozzi, Massimo Cittadini, Massimiliano Menconi, Fine Art Academy of Carrara, Dopofuturismo a Carrara, 2009
- Gdansk, with Louis Philippe Demers’ The Blind Robot, Die, and become! Art and Science as Conjectured Possible 2012
- Prague, with Louis Bec, Hervé Fisher, Cristina Trivellin and Martina Coletti, Mutamorphosis 2007
- Vienna, Zeit Raum – installation at Vienna Airport, 2012
- Maribor, Soft Control – Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious, Kibla, 2012
- Turin, with Giuseppe O. Longo, Diverse Forme Bellissime, 2010
- Prague, with Hervé Fisher, Mutamorphosis 2007
- Bologna, La Comunicazione diffusa, BIT – Multimedia drama, art*science – The New and History/Leonardo 50th Anniversary, 2017
- Moscow, with Dmitry Bulatov, Limits of the Human – Living topologies – Nonhuman agencies 2015
- Luxembourg, with Bernard Andrieu and Franco Torriani, sk-interfaces, 2010
- Istanbul, Robotic portrait by Paul, robot created by Patrick Tresset, ISEA 2011
- Toronto, with Roberta Buiani and Stephen Morris, The Fields Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Emergent Form, 2018
- Vienna, with Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand, 2016
- Linz, with Antonella Guidazzoli and Franz Fischnaller, Ars Electronica 2019
- Lugano, SUPSI – University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, RSI, Auditorium Stelio Molo, 2010
- Skopje, with Melentie Pandilowski, SEAFair 2010 – The apparatus of life and death
- Skopje, with Slavica Josifovska, Boryana Rossa, Ivanka Apostolova, Petko Dourmana, Marcello Mercado, biotech art workshop, SEAFair 2010 – The apparatus of life and death
- Ispra, with Aleksander Väljamäe, European Community Resonances Festival, 2018
- Linz, with Monica Bello Bugallo, Ars Electronica 2018
- Plymouth, with Antonio Caronia, Francesco Monico, Gabriela Galati, Gianni Corino, Planetary Collegium Plenary Session, 2010
- Lugano, with Giovanni Anceschi, Multiple Ways to Design Research, 2009
- Prague, with Diana Domingues, Mutamorphosis 2007
- Cervia, with Annalisa Canali, Museo del Sale, art*science – Art & Climate Change – Dal Mediterraneo al Pacifico. Dialoghi attraverso i mari, 2018
- Monaco, with Salvatore Iaconesi, Consciousness Reframed X, 2009
- Reggio Calabria, Fine Arts Academy, 2020
- Saint-Petersburg, with Nina Czegledy, Olga Kisseleva, Dmitry Yurievich Ozerkov, Olga Dobryanskaya, International Cultural Forum, 2018
- Linz, with my students, Ars Electronica 2017
- Milan, with Antonio Caronia, Milano in Digitale III, 2008
- Plymouth, with Mike Phillips, University of Plymouth, Planetary Collegium Plenary Session, 2010
- Bologna, art*science – The New and History/Leonardo 50th Anniversary, 2017
- Trondheim, Meta.Morf, Consciousness Reframed XI – Making Reality Really Real, 2010
- Paris, with Jaromil, Francesca Bria and Natacha Roussell, Open World Forum 2011
- Venice, Biennale 2017
- Lugano, with my students, Gesti Vocali, 2010
- Istanbul, with Deniz Akçay, Gelisim Üniversitesi, International Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Conference, 2017
- Linz, with Renato Alberti and Giorgia Benvenuti, Ars Electronica 2012
- Linz, with Annick Bureaud and Eduardo Kac, Ars Electronica 2019
- Turin, with Piero Gilardi, Franco Torriani and Eduardo Kac, PAV, 2011
- Linz, with Roger Malina, Leonardo 50th Anniversary, Ars Electronica 2018
- Linz, with Jadwiga Charzynska, Ars Electronica 2018
- Urbino, Fine Arts Academy, art*science/Art&Climate Change 2019
- Perth, with Stelarc, University of Western Australia, NeoLife 2015
- Prato, with Natasha Vita-More, Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci, Researching the future: aspects of art and technoetics 2007
- Berlin, Transmediale 2011
- Venice, Me, the missing portrait of David Hockney, 2017
- Prague, Hack the Brain Prague – Hackathon 2016
- Linz, with Margherita Pevere and Marco Donnarumma, Ars Electronica 2018
- Luxembourg, sk-interfaces, 2010
- Urbino, Fine Arts Academy, Polaroid by Emanuele Bertoni, 2013
- Linz, with Danielle Siembieda, Ars Electronica 2018
- Johannesburg, with Roy Ascott and Derrick de Kerckhove, Wits University, Planetary Collegium PhD Plenary Session, 2014
- Toronto, with Charles Sowers, Stephen Morris, Margherita Pevere, Marco Donnarumma, The Fields Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Emergent Form, 2018
- Lecce, with Giada Totaro and Jatun Risba, Noema 20 Years, 2020
- Prague, with Pavel Smetana, Mutamorphosis 2007
- Plymouth, with the Planetary Collegium PhD candidates, University of Plymouth, The Indivisible Mind, 2015
- Reggia di Caserta, with Mauro Felicori, 2016
- Milano Marittima, teaching in distance in times of COVID-19, 2020
- Lisbon, with Lionel Moura, 2016
- Linz, with Alan Shapiro, Ars Electronica 2010
- Luxembourg, with Jens Hauser, sk-interfaces, 2010
- Algorithmic portrait, 2017
- Linz, with Anna Dumitriu and Alex May, Ars Electronica 2018
An interview of mine has been published in Arshake, by Elena Giulia Rossi, Italian researcher, teacher and editorial director of the same online magazine. The interview was carried out as part of the Game Over project, as the text on the site states: “a project aimed at researching and studying new “cultural entities”, people, objects or research from different disciplines (physics, bio-robotics, AI, agriculture and medicine) and transporting them into the art world”.
I was asked to talk about my research activity and my transdisciplinary interests. Here an excerpt from the interview:
Elena Giulia Rossi: What did it mean to be involved in art, science and technology 15, 20 or 30 years ago?
Pier Luigi Capucci: At the beginning of the 1980s, I started working on the connections between artistic forms, technology and science. I graduated in 1985 with a thesis on visualisation technologies and holography, one of the first in Italy. I was lucky enough to meet people who were important to me, who stimulated me and invited me to hold seminars at the Faculty of Performing Arts (DAMS) of the University of Bologna, who I collaborated on projects with, including Lamberto Pignotti, Omar Calabrese and Giovanni Anceschi. At the same time, I took part in the debate in the art world, involving among other things a collaboration with Pierre Restany lasting over a decade. Restany is one of the most important art critics in the world, with whom there was great harmony and mutual respect, leading me to join both the magazine D’Ars, which he directed, and Domus. In the 1990s I published three books and started teaching permanently at university – at La Sapienza, where I was invited by Alberto Abruzzese to teach the first New Media course in Italy, and at DAMS in Bologna. In 1993 I curated what was perhaps the first interactive art exhibition in our country and the following year, together with my students, founded NetMagazine/MagNet, Italy’s first online magazine. The 1990s was an important decade for the spread of art and communication technologies and there was the explosion of mass computing, the Internet, computer art and, in the middle of that decade, net.art emerged. Since the early 2000s, forms of expression based on biology, robotics and life disciplines have developed.
What did it mean to be involved in art, science and technology back then? In Italy, only a few visionaries, including those I have mentioned, understood that creation, forms of expression, art, communication, culture, society… would be profoundly influenced by the technoscientific revolution. Outside Italy important events were taking place, but here everything was delayed. We were fighting historical prejudices, a constant challenge during my research. I could relate dozens of anecdotes. Once, in the early ‘90s, at the Fine Arts Academy in Bologna, where I had been invited to give a lecture, a student stood up at the end of my talk and started shouting that I was in the pay of the Japanese zaibatsu and, as I was teaching at the University of Bologna at the time, “I was working for a shitty institution!”
On the other hand, there were countless times when the public, and often colleagues, asked the fateful question: “But is this art”? To which, of course, over time I had come up with various response strategies. It was a very frequent question in the 1990s, then became increasingly rare as we entered the new millennium. It is now back in vogue, in a less obtuse way, for art forms based on biology, life sciences, Robotics, Big Data, Artificial Life and the various offshoots of Artificial Intelligence.
The full interview is here:
https://www.arshake.com/en/game-over-loading-pier-luigi-capucci/