Special Projects/
IMMERSED IN THE WORK. From the environment to virtual reality
13 JUNE 2022 – 6.00-8.00 PM
International conference from 13th to 16th June 2022
Organised by the project ERC “AN-ICON” (Università Statale di Milano) in collaboration with Pirelli HangarBicocca
Opening day on
13th June 2022, 6-8 PM
in Pirelli HangarBicocca
The Università Statale di Milano, in collaboration with Pirelli HangarBicocca, presents the international conference “Immersed in the Work. From the environment to virtual reality” dedicated to the interactions between environmental images, immersive media and contemporary art practices promoted as part of the ERC project AN-ICON “An-Iconology. History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images”.
The opening day on Monday 13 June, entitled Surfaces and Depths. Cinema and sculpture in the work of Giorgio Andreotta Calò and Rosa Barba will take place at Pirelli HangarBicocca.
The two artists, who have in the past exhibited in the museum, will talk with scholars Riccardo Venturi and Giuliana Bruno, respectively.
Rosa Barba (1972, Agrigento, lives and works in Berlin) researches the language of cinema and sculpture, to realize works that reflect on the poetic qualities of natural and human landscape. She has had solo shows at many institutions, including Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2021), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2017 and 2010), Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2017), MoMA PS1, New York (2016) and Tate Modern, London (2010). Barba has taken part in many international festivals, including Yokohama Triennial (2020), Venice Biennale (2015, 2009, 2007), Bienal de São Paulo (2016), Biennale of Sydney, and Berlin Biennale (2014).
Giuliana Bruno is Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She is internationally known for her research on the intersections of the visual arts, architecture and media. Her seminal book Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (2002) won the Kraszna-Krausz Award for “The world’s best book on the moving image”. Other books include Streetwalking on a Ruined Map (1993), winner of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies book award; Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts (2007); and Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media (2014). She has contributed to numerous monographs on contemporary art, published, among others, by the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Museo Reina Sofia, and MoMA. Her latest book is Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media.
Giorgio Andreotta Calò (1979, Venice, lives and works between Venice and the Netherlands) realizes sculptures, large-scale site-specific installations that transform both fragments of buildings and entire landscapes. He has had solo shows at many art institutions, including Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2019); Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2018), DEPART Foundation, Los Angeles (2017), SMART Project Space, Amsterdam (2012), MAXXI, Rome (2012). Andreotta Calò participated in numerous group shows including: 6th Quadriennale d’Arte, Rome (2016), Milan Triennale (2015), 54th Venice Biennale (2001). In 2017, he represented Italy at the 57th Venice Biennale.
Riccardo Venturi is a historian and contemporary art critic. He has published Mark Rothko. Lo spazio e la sua disciplina (Electa 2007), Black paintings. Eclissi sul modernismo (Electa 2008) and Passione dell’indifferenza. Francesco Lo Savio (Humboldt Books 2018). He has recently taught history of contemporary art at the Brera Academy, NABA and Aix-Marseille University. He writes regularly in several Italian and foreign magazines including “Antinomie”, www.antinomie.it, which he co-founded.
Admission to the event is free.
Places are limited and booking is required. Reservations on this page.
During the event is mandatory to wear a FFP2 mask.
It will be possible to visit Anicka Yi’s exhibition “Metaspore” from 8PM to 9.30PM.
14th-16th June 2022
in Università Statale di Milano
The following three days, from 14 to 16 June, curated by Elisabetta Modena and Andrea Pinotti, will take place in the Sala Napoleonica of the Università Statale di Milano and will feature national and international artists and figures from the fields of contemporary art history, aesthetics, critical theory, curatorship and media theory.
The full program is available on this page.
The guests who will speak are: Alessandra Acocella, Giovanna Amadasi, Lucia Aspesi, Mieke Bal, Cristina Baldacci, Giuliana Bruno, Micha Cárdenas, Cristina Casero, Lara Conte, Lucia Corrain, Alessandra Donati, Filippo Fimiani, Dario Gamboni, Roberto Pinto, Iolanda Ratti, Roberta Tenconi, Francesco Tedeschi, Vincenzo Trione, Annette Urban, Emilio Vavarella, Stefano Velotti, Giorgio Zanchetti.
The conference will also host the thematic section Dive In: Performance in Immersive Environments curated by Roberto Paolo Malaspina and Sofia Pirandello, which focuses on those artistic practices which, like performance, have addressed and raised questions about the relationship between body and space. The contributions for this section, which are divided between written papers and in-person presentations over the three days of the conference, were selected following a call for abstracts addressed to artists, curators and early career researchers. Among the selected guests: Valentina Bartalesi, Anthony Bekirov, S()fia Braga, Anna Calise, Edoardo de Cobelli, Margherita Fontana, Élise Jouhannet, Kenny Kim, Stefano Mudu, Julia Reich, Marion Roche, Thibaut Vaillancourt, Alice Volpi.
The AN-ICON project “An-Iconology. History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images” is coordinated by Andrea Pinotti at the Università Statale di Milano and is dedicated to the environmentalisation of contemporary images through technologies such as Virtual or Augmented Reality.
Where and when
13th June 2022, 6 PM – 8 PM
Pirelli HangarBicocca, via Chiese 2, Milan.
14th – 16thJune 2022, 9.30 AM – 6.30 PM
Sala Napoleonica, Università Statale di Milano, via Sant’Antonio 12, Milan.
Organising committee
Giovanna Amadasi, Giulia Avanza, Arianna Bertolo, Roberto Paolo Malaspina, Elisabetta Modena, Andrea Pinotti, Sofia Pirandello, Roberta Tenconi.
Useful contacts
an-icon@unimi.it