Marco Scotini

There is no question that ecological ideas acquired a central role in contemporary episteme. In contrast, the heuristic function that these ideas can assume in the current polarisation is questionable: that which, over the last decade, has identified the environmental crisis with the (categorical and totalitarian) concept of the Anthropocene.

Ecological discourse positioned itself inside historically situated trajectories that contributed to the transformation of aesthetical paradigms and political practices. In the scenario that 1968 opened up, the transversal nature of subjectivity allowed it to cover different fields, beginning with the tension between the logic of a unitary discourse and the creation of a multiplicity of possible worlds, between the molar and the molecular, the micro and the macro.

Ecological thought, as such, cannot help but conflict with that which is assumed to be homogeneous and constant, with that which forces the earth to be centred, measured, and expropriated, just as life must be biogenetically controlled, colonised, and subjected to patriarchy.

Combining art and activism, semiotics and capitalism, art and finance, control and subversion, Monitoring Control by Paolo Cirio represents a critique of the social manipulation imposed by new technologies, while examining the counter-control that individuals can implement to dismantle these forces, sabotage them, and protect themselves.

The book presents a collection of ten texts by Paolo Cirio, artist, hacktivist, one of the most attentive investigators in the artistic field of the effects of the information society. With a text by Bruce Sterling and a conversation between Christian Marazzi, Marco Scotini, and Paolo Cirio himself, it gives visual and verbal form to all the forces that control our existence: new media such as Instagram, Facebook, mugshot websites, Google Street View, etc., highlighting the overt yet covert ways in which these tools control our daily activities and lives.

The volume is accompanied by a gallery of images representing some of the thousands of patents of algorithms collected by Cirio on the web to highlight the tools used on the Internet and by artificial intelligence for surveillance and social manipulation.

The radical feminist practice of the Italian art historian, art critic, poet, and feminist Carla Lonzi (1931–1982) and its potential relationship to both historical and contemporary art practices offers the contextual framework for the publication Deculturalize.

Lonzi's recurring demand for deculturizzazione, echoed in the book's title, is based on her proclamation that women's inclusion in society must be understood as a constant colonization. Their ensuing "impotence, lack of history, lack of culture" and "insignificance" can thus only be abolished through the establishment of an "unexpected" (female) subjectivation. Rather than continuing to be the object of historical-social power dynamics, women must become the subject of their own life practices through their continuous withdrawal from (patriarchal) norms.

The book's authors explore if and to what degree Lonzi's radical feminist approach is based on art terms and concepts, or historical or contemporary art practices. The motivation was the exhibition Doing Deculturalization, presented at Museion, Bolzano, in 2019, and the related desire to address the (historically ambivalent) relationship between (Italian) female art and the formation of feminist theory.

Essays by Sabeth Buchmann, Laura Iamurri, Marco Scotini and Elvira Vannini, and Giovanna Zapperi focus on this by analyzing works by women artists whose practices are related to Lonzi's deculturizzazione concept. The contributions by artists Claire Fontaine, Ariane Müller, Margherita Morgantin (in conversation with Lia Cigarini) and Suzanne Santoro (in conversation with Ilse Lafer) present specific reflections on Lonzi's feminist legacy, which is always related to the individual artist's own artistic-feminist practice. Juxtaposed with these are philosophical and analytical concepts developed by Marc Rölli and Annarosa Buttarelli, who reconstruct Lonzi's theory of deculturizzazione based on its historical reference points and update it for the present.

With texts by Sabeth Buchmann, Annarosa Buttarelli, Claire Fontaine, Laura Iamurri, Ilse Lafer, Margherita Morgantin & Lia Cigarini, Ariane Müller, Letizia Ragaglia, Marc Rölli, Suzanne Santoro & Ilse Lafer, Marco Scotini & Elvira Vannini, Giovanna Zapperi.

Trilingual edition (English / German / Italian)