Alessandro Sambini: L’era dei Giganti

The exhibition is divided into two paths, one accessible in OG (‘Original Gangster’, an expression borrowed by the artist from American slang and translated into Italian as “alla vecchia”) mode, the other in VR (virtual reality accessible through a visor) mode.

The first path hosts a series of significant works in the strand of artistic research dedicated by Alessandro Sambini to new technologies, works that can be considered preparatory to the unpublished virtual work presented here. These include People at an exhibition (2016), a series of stickers resulting from a robotic performance aimed at exploring the relationship between viewers and images on the web; Spelling Book (2018), an investigation into the capacity of an artificial intelligence to create archetypal images; MARIO (2021), a synaesthetic device invented by the artist to establish a connection between photographer and photographed subject; and Tecnocopia (2022), a VR installation that investigates the concepts of portrait, identity and reproducibility in virtual spaces.

The second part of the exhibition, which can only be visited by appointment, features Alessandro Sambini’s latest work, “L’Era dei Giganti”, a performance for metaverse in virtual reality from which the exhibition takes its title, and which develops between the last room of the gallery and the room on the upper floor. The Age of Giants, in line with Sambini’s fields of investigation offers an experience that leads to a critical reflection on the aesthetic and narrative forms imposed by TikTok on its users. Starting from a reflection on the proportions, physical, optical and conceptual, to which the use of social networking exposes us, the artist brings us into the presence of the figure of a giant, with whom we can interact and converse. Reformulating narrative excerpts from TikTok videos through fiction, the work invites us to question the actual dimensions of these figures and to reconsider our role as users of digital platforms.