Short bio

Short

Since the 1980s Pier Luigi Capucci has been concerned with the relationships among technologies, culture and society, and among forms of expression, scientific disciplines and technologies. His theoretical work focuses on languages, techniques and technologies of representation in communication and art, on technoscience-based cultural and art forms, and on media archaeology.

He has taught at the Universities of Rome “La Sapienza”, Bologna, Florence, Urbino and Udine, at SUPSI – University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland in Lugano, and at the Academies of Fine Arts of Urbino, NABA Milan, LABA Rimini, Carrara, Reggio Calabria, L’Aquila and Quasar Rome. From 2007 he was a supervisor in the T-Node PhD Research Program of the Planetary Collegium (University of Plymouth), where he served as Director of Studies from 2013 to 2018. He is a member of AICA (Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art / International Association of Art Critics, Paris), Italian section, and of the Italian Order of Journalists (Ordine dei Giornalisti).

He has given courses, lectures, seminars and workshops at:

Universities: Bologna, Milan (Polytechnic and State University), Royal College of Art (London), Modena, Salerno, Florence, Udine, Genoa, São Paulo, Trieste, Chicago, Rome “La Sapienza”, Siena, Turin, Lake Forest College (USA), Urbino, Reggio Calabria, NETTUNO – Network for University Everywhere, Universität für Angewandte Kunst (Vienna), MHMK Macromedia Hochschule für Medien und Kommunikation (Munich), SUPSI Lugano, The Fields Institute for Mathematical Sciences (Toronto), University of Western Australia (Perth), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim), University of Plymouth, Istanbul Gelişim University, University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), Quasar Design University (Rome), Sabancı University (Istanbul), University of California, Irvine (USA), Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil), Duke University (USA), Politecnico di Torino, University of the Aegean (Mytilene, Greece).
Academies of Fine Arts and ISIA: Bologna, Rome, Naples, Turin, Urbino, Milan (Brera and NABA), Rimini (LABA), Venice, Łódź (Poland), Carrara, Reggio Calabria, RUFA Rome, Perugia, L’Aquila, Pescara, Accademia delle Arti e Nuove Tecnologie (AANT, Rome), Macerata.
Institutions, foundations, museums, galleries and private institutes, including: Domus Academy, Fondazione IDIS, Fondazione Garzanti, Istituto Gramsci, Vidéothèque de Paris, RAI (Rome), Goethe-Institut, ARCO (Madrid), CINECA (Bologna), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Istituto Nazionale di Architettura (Rome), Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella), Venice Biennale, IRI (Rome), ISEA 2011 Istanbul, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa (Venice), PAV (Turin), Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture (Kefalonia), Anilla Cultural Latinoamérica – Europa (Montevideo), Open World Forum (Paris), LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón), National Center for Contemporary Arts (Moscow), TEKS (Trondheim), SEAFair (Skopje), Swiss Design Network Symposium (Lugano), European Commission Joint Research Centre (Ispra), VII International Cultural Forum (Saint Petersburg), Centre for Fine Arts – Bozar (Brussels), Teatro Solís (Montevideo), Kibla (Maribor), CIANT (Prague), Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art (Gdańsk), MAR – Museo d’Arte della città and Biblioteca Classense (Ravenna), Teatro Miela (Trieste), Museo del Sale (MUSA, Cervia), MACRO Museum (Rome), ISEA 2020 Montreal, Centrale Idrodinamica del Porto Vecchio (Trieste), MAXXI Museum (Rome), Enrico Fermi Research Center (Rome), Sotto18 Film Festival (Turin), Future Film Festival (Bologna), Biennale Tecnologia (Turin), Beall Center for Art + Technology, University of California (Irvine), Hungarian Academy in Rome, Bribie Island (Australia), Festival Internacional de la Imagen (Manizales, Colombia), Fondazione Mudima (Milan).

He has published the books Realtà del virtuale. Rappresentazioni tecnologiche, comunicazione, arte (Reality of the Virtual. Technological Representations, Communication, Art; Clueb, 1993; new edition Noema, 2015, also as an eBook), on technological virtuality and the relationships between culture and representation; Il corpo tecnologico. L’influenza delle tecnologie sul corpo e sulle sue facoltà (The Technological Body. The Influence of Technologies on the Body and Its Faculties; Baskerville, 1994), on the impact of technologies on the human body; Arte e tecnologie. Comunicazione estetica e tecnoscienze (Art and Technologies. Aesthetic Communication and Technosciences; Ed. dell’Ortica, 1996; new edition Noema, 2013, also as an eBook), on art forms that use technological tools; and Noema. Uno sguardo lungo 25 anni (Noema, 2025), also published in English as Noema. A look spanning 25 years (Noema, 2025), for Noema’s 25th anniversary. He co-edited art*science. The New and History (Noema, 2018, in English), on the relationship between innovation and history, and Arte e complessità (Art and Complexity; Noema, 2018), on contemporary art forms engaging with complexity. He edited Dialogues across the seas: the ocean that keeps us apart also joins us. Charting knowledge and practice in the Anthropocene (Noema, 2022; second edition 2024), also published in Italian as Dialoghi attraverso i mari. Il mare che ci separa, ci unisce. Tracciare conoscenza e pratica nell’Antropocene (Noema, 2023).

He has published more than 400 texts in conference proceedings, catalogues and edited volumes internationally. He has written for periodicals including Linea Grafica, Area, Domus, D’Ars, Golem, Pluriverso, Terzo Occhio and La Stanza Rossa. From 1990 to 2002 he was in charge of the media art section of D’Ars, a journal of culture and visual communication directed by Pierre Restany, and from 2007 to 2011 he directed its “Nuovi Orizzonti” (New Horizons) section. From 1995 to 1998 he was a member of the scientific committee of La Stanza Rossa. From October 1995 to September 1997 he was in charge of the “Communication” section of Domus. From December 1998 to June 1999 he was a member of the Advisory Board of WebDesign.

In 1994 he founded and directed NetMagazine, later MagNet, the first Italian online magazine, published in several languages, on the relationships between culture and technologies, in collaboration with the Universities of Bologna and Rome “La Sapienza”. In March 2000 he founded Noema (https://noemalab.eu), a journal and registered news outlet (ISSN 2283-3145) on the relationships among technologies, sciences, culture and society, of which he is president and editor-in-chief. Here “culture” also means habits, lifestyles, communication, art, society, economy, media, sciences, philosophy…, while “new technologies” are meant in a broader sense than the digital realm alone. In 2003 Noema was selected by RAI International as the best Italian website.

Since 1992 he has worked on European projects on communication technologies and on the relational and social opportunities of networks and multimedia applications. From 2004 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2011 he was a member of the Ars Electronica International Advisory Board for the Net Communities category. Since 2018 he has been a consultant to the European Commission on the relationships between scientific disciplines and technologies (in particular Artificial Intelligence and Big Data) and the humanities.

In 2012 he founded fivewordsforthefuture (https://fivewordsforthefuture.eu), a project to understand and recognize the “new” and innovation.

In 2017 he founded art*science (https://artscience.online), a series of events on critical aspects of the contemporary world, which in 2018 launched a research project on art and climate change.

In 2018 he founded Dialogues across the Seas (https://dialoguesacrosstheseas.org), to foster a transdisciplinary dialogue on the climate emergency and on issues related to ocean and marine environments.

Very short

Pier Luigi Capucci works on communication systems and languages and, since the 1980s, on the relationships among forms of expression, scientific disciplines and technologies, and on media archaeology. He has taught at the Universities of Rome “La Sapienza”, Bologna, Florence, Urbino and Udine, at SUPSI – University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland in Lugano, and at the Academies of Fine Arts of Urbino, NABA Milan, LABA Rimini, Carrara, Reggio Calabria, L’Aquila and Quasar Rome. From 2007 he was a supervisor in the T-Node PhD Research Program of the Planetary Collegium (University of Plymouth), where he served as Director of Studies from 2013 to 2018. He is a member of AICA (Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art / International Association of Art Critics, Paris), Italian section, and of the Italian Order of Journalists.

He has published the books Realtà del virtuale (Reality of the Virtual, 1993; 2015), Il corpo tecnologico (The Technological Body, 1994), Arte e tecnologie (Art and Technologies, 1996; 2013) and Noema. Uno sguardo lungo 25 anni (2025; English edition Noema. A look spanning 25 years, 2025). He has edited art*science. The New and History (2018), Arte e complessità (Art and Complexity, 2018) and Dialogues across the seas: the ocean that keeps us apart also joins us. Charting knowledge and practice in the Anthropocene (2022; Italian edition 2023; second edition 2024). He has published more than 400 texts in books, magazines and conference proceedings in Italy and abroad.

In March 1994 he founded and directed NetMagazine, later MagNet, a research project on the relationships between culture and technologies and the first online magazine in Italy. In March 2000 he founded Noema (https://noemalab.eu), a journal and registered news outlet on the relationships among technologies, sciences, culture and society, of which he is president and editor-in-chief; in 2003 it was selected by RAI International as the best Italian website. He has organized exhibitions, curated projects and taken part in conferences in Italy and abroad.

He has worked on several European projects on communication technologies and has served on the Ars Electronica International Advisory Board for the Net Communities category in several editions. Since 2018 he has been a consultant to the European Commission on the relationships between scientific disciplines and technologies (in particular Artificial Intelligence and Big Data) and the humanities.

In 2012 he founded fivewordsforthefuture (https://fivewordsforthefuture.eu), a project to understand and recognize the “new” and innovation.

In 2017 he founded art*science (https://artscience.online), a series of events on critical aspects of the contemporary world, which in 2018 launched a research project on the relationship between art and climate change.

Micro

Pier Luigi Capucci works on communication systems and languages and, since the 1980s, on the relationships among arts, sciences and technologies, and on media archaeology. He has taught at universities and academies of fine arts: the Universities of Rome “La Sapienza”, Bologna, Florence, Urbino and Udine, SUPSI in Lugano, and the Academies of Fine Arts of Urbino, NABA Milan, LABA Rimini, Carrara, Reggio Calabria, L’Aquila and Quasar Rome. From 2013 to 2018 he was Director of Studies of the T-Node PhD Research Program of the Planetary Collegium (University of Plymouth). He has published the books Realtà del virtuale (Reality of the Virtual, 1993; 2015), Il corpo tecnologico (The Technological Body, 1994), Arte e tecnologie (Art and Technologies, 1996; 2013) and Noema. Uno sguardo lungo 25 anni (2025; English edition Noema. A look spanning 25 years, 2025), and has edited art*science. The New and History (2018), Arte e complessità (Art and Complexity, 2018) and Dialogues across the seas (2022; Italian edition 2023; second edition 2024). In 1994 he founded and directed NetMagazine, later MagNet, the first Italian online magazine. In 2000 he founded Noema, an online journal and network of projects on the relationships among arts, sciences, technologies and society, of which he is president. He is the founder and curator of the art*science – Art & Climate Change research project. He has worked on European cultural projects on communication technologies and has served on the Ars Electronica International Advisory Board for the Net Communities category in several editions. He is a consultant to the European Commission on the relationships among sciences, technologies and the humanities, in particular with regard to Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. He is a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) and of the Italian Order of Journalists.

Minimal

Since the 1980s Pier Luigi Capucci has worked on the relationships among arts, sciences and technologies. He has taught at universities and academies of fine arts, including the Universities of Rome “La Sapienza”, Bologna and Florence. He founded and directs Noema (since 2000) and is the author of books including Realtà del virtuale, Il corpo tecnologico and Arte e tecnologie. He is a consultant to the European Commission on technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence, and the humanities.