residenza lorenzo bacci e flavio moriniello

The Revolution will n̶o̶t̶ be going live

In The Revolution will n̶o̶t̶ be going live, Lorenzo Bacci and Flavio Moriniello reflect on the role of the image in the age of hyper-diffused and hyper-participated information, on the need to produce visual evidencies that place the individual in a certain place and time.

The mobile device, as a prosthesis, an extension of the self, an appendix that grows from the endsof the fingers of the hand that supports it, constantly pointed towards the individual, never looks at itself. Like a concave mirror, the device observes everything and records everything. Action thatreveals the human need to display and show oneself, as an act of affirmation capable of reassuring the individual on his belonging to a community.

Bacci and Moriniello reverse the direction of their gaze, turning it no longer beyond, but towards the same machine. In order to educate the algorithm to identify and recognize the gesture, the
authors feed it with images of their limbs interacting with the device.
They then put it into action, probing the archive material produced on the occasion of the pitch invasion during the Milan-Sassuolo match, which saw Milan winning the Scudetto after eleven years. The sport event in question is not just a symbolic collective ceremony involving millions of people, but an opportunity of reflecting on a secondary ritual, linked to the need of recording the self at any cost, even in the offence.

Within a continuous process of cancellation and concealment of the device, the authors ironically allude to the ambiguity of the gesture and to the power that such tools, like weapons, can exercise over the same individuals who wield them.
The gratification caused by the production of online shareable contents becomes soon a consenting limitation of the personal freedom. The same visual material feeds the profiling algorithms aimed at increasing customer loyalty and consumption, giving rise to a perverse circular mechanism in which the user ends up being trapped.

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Moodboard

The mobile device, as a prosthesis

Action that reveals the human need to display and show oneself, as an act of affirmation capable of reassuring the individual on his belonging to a community.