Long-durational performance.
Oct. 05-Nov. 06, 2023.
Office/studio set, laptop, prints on acetate.
Environmental dimensions.
Platea - Palazzo Galeano, Lodi IT
Curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi and Benedetta Monti.
Ph. Alberto Messina and Matteo Cavalieri
From October 6 to November 5, 2023, the exhibition space of Platea, in the historic center of Lodi, was transformed into a temporary office equipped with the comforts and benefits typical of contemporary workplaces. Throughout the performance, I occupied the space daily from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., conducting research into the mechanisms of labor exploitation and self-exploitation, the logic of productivity, and the progressive erosion of the boundary between working time and personal time.
The research unfolded through a process of collecting, selecting, and presenting materials, published on a dedicated website and displayed daily on the storefront window as acetate prints. The accumulation of information generated a continuously expanding archive that progressively saturated the transparent surface, altering the visual relationship between the interior space and the public realm. The storefront took on the characteristics of a screen through which my constant presence could be observed, while my body became both the subject and the instrument of the investigation. Rather than merely documenting the conditions of contemporary labor, the research reproduced them through a rigorous organization of time, presence, and activity.
The title draws on the computing term groupware, which refers to software designed to facilitate collaboration and the achievement of shared goals. The promise of optimization embedded in these tools found a parallel in the ambiguity of an artistic practice that, in questioning the mechanisms of productivity, ultimately adopted their very modes of operation. Groupware thus exposed an unresolved contradiction, in which the time devoted to analyzing exploitation coincided with its own reproduction, taking away from personal life the very hours dedicated to questioning it.
Go to Groupware website (mobile view)
Acetates printed and attached to glass containing research abstracts for the public.
Groupware's constantly updated website that collects a visual archive of research. Visitors can contact the artist to contribute to the research via a special button.
Disguise into a kawaii geek girl. October 13, 2023.
Break area.
Berardi F., Disertate, Timeo (Palermo), 2023.
Disguise into a person wearing pajamas in smartworking.
October 20, 2023.
Disguise as a call center. October 27, 2023.
Skeleton halloween disguise. October 31, 2023.
Finissage. November 5, 2023.
"Still the last task before drowning in evasion. One-way effectiveness, existential mirroring, input overload.
"Defect!" It says on a cover at the back of the room. But from what?
From this incessant self-exploitation that engages my mind day and night? From what they say is an impossible revolution?
From such responsibilities as demeaning as they are foreign?
(Shakes head)
I carry with me a trove of tense moments motivated by the chorus that presides in my mental room.
(Stares into the void, sinks into thoughts).
Repetitive movements, automatic, useful, easy, comfortable, seen from the outside this reality becomes passive entertainment, nothing exceptional or hard to digest happens.
They tell me it is due to the successes to be achieved and I tell myself of the failures that I must turn into triumphs.
In building my tomorrow I am destroying my present.
(Clenches fists, stretches fingers).
The time has come, I must get out of here. Exploitation is loading ink but my paper no longer absorbs. I refuse to continue living, in an alienating condition between the bulimia of dictated assignments and the pressure of unbalanced deadlines toward nervous exhaustion. I feel out of it. Yes, I am fucking out of it.
But how will I cope with the loneliness and other anxieties that will befall me if I am left with no one? Perhaps, I must continue to worship the system.
(Sighs resignation)
Well, and then it will really never end, I will really never leave.
(Shakes head)
I carry with me a trove of tense moments motivated by the chorus that presides in my mental room.
(Stares into the void, sinks into thoughts)
Repetitive movements, automatic, useful, easy, comfortable, seen from the outside this reality becomes passive entertainment, nothing exceptional or hard to digest happens.
They tell me it is due to the successes to be achieved and I tell myself of the failures that I must turn into triumphs.
In building my tomorrow I am destroying my present.
(Clenches fists, stretches fingers)
The time has come, I must get out of here. Exploitation is loading ink but my paper no longer absorbs. I refuse to continue living, in an alienating condition between the bulimia of dictated assignments and the pressure of unbalanced deadlines toward nervous exhaustion. I feel out of it. Yes, I am fucking out of it.
But how will I cope with the loneliness and other anxieties that will befall me if I am left with no one? Perhaps, I must continue to worship the system.
(Sighs resignation)
Well, and then it will really never end, I will really never leave."
Niccolò Giacomazzi and Benedetta Monti.
Last sheet attached to the window containing a final letter of resignation.
