EXXTRA

Multimedia Arts and Design exhibition: Gianmatteo Buttiglione, Mirko Pelliccia, Daniele Falchi, Simone Tecchia, Consuelo Donati, Silvia Parolini, Maria Gavrilova, Tijana Gavric, Elisa Quadrini, curated by Daniele Falchi, coordinated by Giulio Pernice. RUFA Space June 15-18, 2021.

EXXTRA is an exhibition organized by the second year students of the Master of Arts program in Multimedia Arts and Design at RUFA. At the RUFA Space, six works are presented that reflect – each in its own way – on the critical issues arising from the current pandemic situation. The progressive loss of the human dimension in favor of the digital condition has created a relational paradox that is difficult to explain; EXXTRA wants to collect these stimuli to think about other worlds, other sexualities, other living species, which are extra compared to the world we live in. The viewer, through the interactivity provided by the works, is called to participate in the first person in the exhibition, bringing the body at the center. The ultimate goal of the exhibition is to reflect on the complex relationship between real and virtual, offering a range of different points of view.

The artist and the art works

MUTUAL by Gianmatteo Buttiglione and Mirko Pelliccia

The installation reproduces the continuous relationship between the individual and the environment, in which every event causes an effect, whether positive or negative for both parties. The visitor is called upon to interact with this artwork: a pedestal on which is set a container endowed with its own life, visible from a distance.
Once they get close, by immersing their hands in this water-filled case, everyone discovers that they influence the underlying ecosystem in real time, thus conditioning its developments and outcomes according to the fluidity of movements, which may or may not be harmonized with it. In fact, this installation not only can be molded but it can also respondo to the solicitation it receives, just like a natural system yet in more immediate times.
What Mutual stages through synesthesia is a delicate feedback system, in which both human and nature make choices influencing each other’s existence through numerous evolutions.

HOLOX by Daniele Falchi and Simone Tecchia

The project aims to investigate – in the form of an interactive installation – the complex phenomenon of extinction, focusing on its behavioral matrix.
Ecosystems that survived major mass extinctions suggest us the adaptive characteristics of living beings, destined for destruction in case of alien elements or habitat modifications.
In this context, the behavioral factor plays a central role, determining the adaptation and subsequent evolution of the species dwelling in the ecosystem.
The installation sees the creation of a holographic cell projection in continuous expansion, determined by the alien presence of the viewers who – with their movements within the surrounding space – will influence its evolution or cause its extinction.

FLOW by Consuelo Donati

In little more than thirty years, the hybrid man-machine has been transformed from a purely fantastic figure into an everyday experience.
This immersive experience with virtual reality analyzes the concept of expanded body within the extended and confused space that is the net.
There is no gravity inside the internet networks that intertwine multiplying endlessly like an invisible spider web, suspended who knows where. The body “is covered” by the connected body that multiplies and shatters in the internet, demonstrating its intentionality in the world and for the other world. What introduces this new condition is precisely this re(e)volution of the body or rather its “fluid mutation”.
The physical body is transformed into a fluid body traveling in other dimensions. Generally, fluids are considered the materials that have the ability to continuously change their shape adapting to the container; Flow hence becomes the container of this expanded body, fluid and suspended in a warm and relaxed desert.

FIT(IN)TERFACE by Silvia Parolini

The body as a complex system without end, mobilizes its functions by expanding on the screen of a television while touch acquires value (and pleasure) because it pedals and rests its hands on the handlebars of an exercise bike.
An exercise bike placed in the space that becomes the gateway, the link, the bridge of contact between the body of the user and the immaterial space of a geo-digital journey: a desert of strange lost archeologies navigated in real time.
Today, the big fashion and beauty-culture brands are eager to combine sophisticated technologies to “augment” the consumer experience to incentivize the purchase of beauty products. How will our wellness gadgets of the future transform from these scenarios? This project speculates on the sensory and spiritual potential of these new beauty-tech trends. Rely on your fitness gear, your amazing physical performance, and get ready to discover your boundless virtual corporeality.

THE NET-SYSTEM by Maria Gavrilova and Elisa Quadrini

The Net system is a Project based on the duality of the scope of the concept of ecosystem. The purpose of this installation is to explicate the clear proximity between the natural ecosystem and the computer ecosystem.
Both ecosystems considered have many aspects in common: they are characterized by a moment of birth, by their need of nourishment for growth, and by their death. A well nourished plant grows healthy, a well programmed computer system with good feedback can grow and develop.
The installation therefore deals with uniting these two worlds, inviting the user to contribute, which will serve to make the computer plant grow. It will have to interact with the ecosystem through two buttons and will have to try to find the right balance.
The ecosystem depends on us.

WE ARE NATURE by Tijana Gavric

Ecosystems provide many of the building blocks for human well-being. Although the quantification and appreciation of these contributions have grown rapidly, our dependence on cultural connections to nature deserves more attention. We synthesize peer-reviewed multidisciplinary research on the contributions of nature or ecosystems with human well-being mediated by non-tangible connections (such as culture). We characterize these connections based on the channels through which these connections arise and the components of human well-being they influence. We have found tremendous variation in the methods used, the amount of research, and the generalizability of the literature. The effects of nature on mental and physical health have been rigorously demonstrated, while other effects (e.g., on learning) are theorized but rarely demonstrated. The balance of evidence conclusively indicates that knowing and experiencing nature generally makes us happier and healthier people. Characterizing our intangible connections to nature more fully will help shape decisions that benefit the people and ecosystems on which we depend.

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