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Marco Mancuso

1. Can you present yourself and what you do?
I’m a freelance journalist, critic, art curator and consultant in new media, digital culture and electronic arts in Italy. Founder and director of Digicult (and the magazine Digimag, the podcast Digipod, the newsletter Diginews and the artagency Digimade), a project about digital technologies crossing art, design, science, culture and society. I work specifically on contemporary audiovisual art & design, with a focus on live cinema & live media projects, generative & open source technologies, interactive & immersive installations and art & science practices. I live and work in Milan and I have been working and writing for many technology, communication, art and design Italian magazines in the last 10 years. I worked as curator for festivals in Italy (Piemonte Share, Dissonanze, MixedMedia, Screen Music, Sincronie among others) and as guest curator for some international events (Cimatics, Strp, Sonic Acts, Nemo, Strp, Elektra) presenting Italian audiovisual artists and designers with the curatorial project +39:Call for Italy. I have also curated the first Italian G.R.L. Laser Tag urban performance, some solo exhibitions (op7_Otolab, Thorsten Fleisch, The Arts Catalyst) and cross media events. My interviews and articles can be read on Digicult archive, while my essays were published in some festival and exhibition catalogues (Piemonte Share, MixedMedia, 0006_Limiteazero, op7_Otolab, Direct Digital exhibition, Struttura festival) and written for some lectures and presentations I joined (Bruce Sterling’s workshop at Fabrica, Art&Science conference in Naples, The Open Source meeting in Perugia, Pixxelpoint in Gorizia, Politecnico Design in Milan, Laba Academy in Brescia). I’m working with the newly developed art-agency DigiMade as curator/promoter for some Italian artists, promoting their work inside the main international festivals, events, platforms and cultural centres in Europe that work with digital technology and electronics. I teach “Multimedia Languages for Art” at the NABA-New Academy of Arts in Milan, “Story and Theory if Audiovisual Art” and “New Media Art” at the IED-European Institute of Design in Milan, and I was invited as guest lecturer in many Italian Universities presenting theories concerning connections between history of experimental cinema, expanded cinema, video art and contemporary digital audiovisual art, including the relationship to space, the sciences and generative or architectural design tools.

2. How would you describe the role a young artist today?
I think that, more in general, the role of an artist today is not so different from the role of the artists during the avanguards of the last century. The artist has an important role, a key position in contemporary society, expecially in the modern society in which we live: a society full of rapid changes, of technologies developents, of growing violence, of media control, of superficial values. If you think well, there are not big differences from some revolting periods of the last century, ecxept from the fact of new digital technologies of course: internet, networking and social networks, bio and nano sciences and design, robotics, interactions, audiovisuals are all elements more and more central in our lifes. The main problem today is that the “normal” men and women are not involved in the potential risks but also powers of new technologies, that shape the world in which we live: are not used with new aesthetics in art and design, the potential connections with the past analogic or electronic technologies, and are not affordable with possible connections between new instruments and tools used both for creativity or professional purposes (in terms of new hardwares and softwares). And, don’t think about the general ignorance about open source technologies, open hardwares, free softwares, peer to peer technologies and so on. So, I firmly think that the artist today (both yound and not young artist) must consideate all these aspects, trying to be a surface connecting people with the world of art (or design) and using new aesthetics and technologies to explain the complex and rapid world surranding us, to visualize data fluxus and systems, to suggeste new ways of producing and creating objects outside the rule of big multinationalities, to introduce a new possible way of living, being informed, working with others, being indipendent. This is the role of the art: to be not passive, to be informed, well trained on technologies, without forgetting the experience of the past, to always suggest a way to interpretare the reality.

3. How do see now and how do you imagine cultural collaborations in the Mediterranean in the future?
To be honest, and someone can say fortunately even if it could be one of the risks of new technologies, all the national and cultural borders are falling down: it means that it’s very easy today for people in general, and also for people living and working in the Mediterranean Area to be in contact, to work togheter, to share ideas and to develope cultural collaborations. I mean, If I have to imagine it, it will be not different from any kind of collaboration of people at different corners of the world. Of course, people living in the same cultural area, with such an history as the Mediterranea Area in terms of art, democracy and civilization, will share a common cultural background (even if is not sure that it could have more potentiality of a cultural mix that could grow up from people living and working at opposite corners of the world, with different identities and cultures). Of course, the Mediterranean Area is not uniform in terms of digital devide and internet access and freedoms: we must remember it, we don’t have to forget that situation in Italy, France or Spain is not the same as the situation in North Africa, or Balcans region, or Middle-East Area. Of course, if new digital technologies are the common field that can make cultural collaborations easier, it’s important to give all the people living in all these regions the same technological chances to work, live and create .

4. Do you think online tools are a good model to start art exchanges in the Mediterranean?
I think I’ve answered yet in the previous question. Online tools like blogs and podcast as editorial platforms, Facebook, Flickr and Vimeo to communicate and share multimedia contents, Delicious and Twitter to be informed, Peer to Peer and open source technologies to share softwares and hardwares, online platforms to work togheter, are all important instruments for art exchanges, not only in the Mediterranean area.