“[…] hunc inter fluvio Tiberinus amoeno verticibus rapidis et multa flavus harena in mare prorumpit […]” Virgil. What remains of the mythology of the blonde Tiber, strictly linked as it is to the birth of Rome and over 2000 years of history, as its waters dwindle season after season? The epochal changes of waters in the twenty-first century speak of a revolutionary upheaval that
Digital Media and Democracy, aka From Democracy to Post-Citizenship is a panel I am organizing at MIT for the Media in Transition 10 conference entitled Democracy and Digital Media with the assistance of Rob Halperin. The panel was developed following the encouragement of Professor William Uricchio, Department of Comparative Media Studies at MIT. The panel seeks to engage with and discuss issues related to contemporary
But I Can't Help Myself: Against the Resurgence of the Millennial Issues of Ignorance and Idiocy is Lanfranco Aceti's inaugural lecture at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). The lecture focuses on the role of contemporary politics in reshaping our understanding of society and the modalities for practicing art. Professor Aceti introduces a series of concepts and frameworks to define his aesthetic approaches
Where Is Space? is a conversation between Professor Vincent Brown (Harvard) and Professor Lanfranco Aceti (MIT and BU) on issues of space and its relationship to the construction of contemporary visual, literary, and historical contexts and narratives. Professor Brown will talk about space, time, and slavery in the context of contemporary digital media and discuss these topics with professor Aceti. The lecture will take
Disobedient, Discontented, and Disruptive: Politics of Aesthetic Resistance and Resilience is a presentation by Professor Lanfranco Aceti at Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) @ MIT. The presentation, on Tuesday, February 13, 2018, is part of ACT luncheon series and engages faculty and students with the affiliate's research and thought processes in the creation of new scholarly works, curatorial projects, or personal exhibitions. “The repressed
Remainders at the End of a Summer Bliss, by Lanfranco Aceti, is a curatorial essay that surveys Bill Balaskas’s exhibition, Remains of a Summer Bliss, at the Kalfayan Galleries, Athens and Thessaloniki. Featured on their new platform, Contemporary Arts and Cultures (CAC), the essay is published by the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), MIT Press. In a globalized context of ruthless capitalism, this curatorial essay
It's Time is a conversation between Prof. Sean Cubitt (Goldsmiths and Harvard) and Prof. Lanfranco Aceti (MIT and BU) on issues of time and its relationship to the contemporary databased and mediated narratives. The lecture will take place in the Plimpton Room, Barker Center, Room 133, Harvard University on Monday, December 4, 2017, from 6:30pm to 8:00 pm. Inspired by Italo Calvino's Six Memos for
One of my new essays is out and is entitled Wet Me: Cupio Dissolvi ad Nubes et Lumina, for the issue of Leonardo Electronic Almanac titled Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics published by MIT Press. I also edited the full volume with Paul Thomas and Edward Colless. Thanks, in particular go, to two new members of LEA Team of assistant editors: Candice Bancheri and Ashley Daugherty. It is
Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics is a volume that situates a critical discourse on the molecular data–cloud and aesthetics within contemporary experiences of art and society. It reflects varied perceptions and current thinking by artists, curators, scientists, and theorists in comprehending the appropriation and colonization of the cloud. The cloud can be seen as a veiling of information, where it becomes clouded, foggy, fuzzy, obscure, or
How does one inhabit emptiness? There is a tension and struggle inherent to the space between the will of preserving its void and the will of the forces that wish to occupy it. For Katerina Koskina, director of EMST (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens), the complexity of emptiness and its overabundance of possibilities has been a dilemma from the moment she first visited the
