-x-=+ (Costruire sull’assenza del referente)

For the seventh edition of das - experimental artistic dialogues, CUBO presents an articulated site-specific project by Stefano Non entitled TEMPI NUOVI curated by Claudio Musso that develops in the two venues of the Corporate Museum, in which the artist proposes a vision on the relationship between artistic creation and technological aesthetics.

Menopermenougualepiù (Costruire sull'assenza del referente/Building on the absence of the referent) is the title of the exhibition that develops in the hypermodern rooms located on the top floors of Torre Unipol, triggering a dialogue with the architecture and the urban context. The exhibition takes the form of the third chapter of a trilogy that has engaged the artist since 2020 in a personal reflection on the cultural consequences of scientific discoveries in the field of space-time. This strand of his research is based on the creation and exploration of futuristic scenarios in which to set stories and characters, place plastic objects and readymades, and stage live actions and performances that transport viewers beyond the present reality.

In the process of conceiving and producing his works, Stefano Non mainly crosses and tackles three highly topical themes.

First among these is gamification, i.e. the use of elements borrowed from games in non-game contexts, which can convey various messages and induce active behaviour on the part of the users, but at the same time can serve to build multi-level learning platforms in which knowledge can be cross-referenced and made accessible to all. The theme of the post-human is also addressed, that is, the possibility of rethinking the very nature of the human being in relation to the environment that surrounds him or her according to a hybrid vision, such as through scientific progress, particularly biotechnology, which offers an overcoming of the distinctive bodily support of the human race, in favour of artificial prostheses or characteristics borrowed from other species. The project also explores the subject of transcoding, i.e. the computer language in which the conversion of a signal from one code to another takes place. The term used by Lev Manovich in his The Language of New Media, can be extended to any process of translation or transposition between different media or languages, just as it can imply the dialogue between a human being and a machine through an interface.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the video work DADA 3000 I.E., a lucid dream in which key figures of 20th century art and science meet in video game landscapes. Stefanon NON has scripted some episodes gathered in a video made in CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) where the encounter between scientific and humanistic disciplines is manifested through short sketches with protagonists such as Marie Curie to Nam June Paik and others up to Alberto Burri.

The use of rigid, polygonal graphics, associated with the concept of the pixel, the smallest unit of a digital image and fundamental to the graphic composition of any visual representation on a screen, can be considered a return to the aesthetics of the past, a style often associated with early video games such as Simcity and Minecraft and early digital representations, where graphic processing resources were limited.

Minecraft is an adventure genre video game with freely explorable levels, developed by Markus Persson and the company Mojang Studios in 2009. The world that is depicted is mainly composed of three-dimensional cubes with which an original scenario can be constructed. The system is based on the transformation of mineral, vegetable and animal materials. Having become a mass cultural phenomenon, it is now available in 139 languages and has surpassed the threshold of 200 million copies distributed through various channels. The game mode is geared towards three basic directions: gathering resources - "Use your wits and exploit your surroundings to gather building materials: find out how to cut down trees to create something new"; surviving the night - "It's always best to avoid surprises by keeping your distance from wandering creatures: you never know what will happen if they get too close!"; building extraordinary things - "Discover all the versatile ways in which the dust of the mineral Pietrarossa can be used to enhance your creations, bring them to life or give them a shock".

The deliberate use of these simple geometric shapes and pixels also contributes to a distinctive and recognisable aesthetic that creates evocative atmospheres and provides a contemporary reinterpretation of a visual language that belongs to our past, offering creative and artistic insights and reflections on the evolution of digital graphics.

In the exhibition area, dominated by modernist architectural materials such as metal and glass, islands of prefabricated Poroton bricks emerge, evoking an urban skyline. These linear formations serve as a base for plastic-dynamic presences: the Genesis non-sculptures. These are the result of unprecedented and original experimentation with recently used industrial materials such as metal alloys, paints with fluorescent and iridescent tones, and at the same time, they are intended to be a direct expression of the distant future world to which they allude.