I wrote a short history of the Italian presence in the metaverse, from Active Worlds to Roblox, for the fourth issue of the magazine Quaderni della Quadriennale. The magazine is available in print, but the featured articles are also made available online, in Italian and English. Enjoy!
Domenico Quaranta, “Identità come performance. L’arte nel metaverso”, in Quaderni d’arte italiana, Issue 4 (Identity), Treccani – La Quadriennale di Roma, 2023 (English version)
A short reportage written in 2009 for the Performa 09 printed catalogue, where Eva and Franco Mattes premiered their in-game performances. Just added to the Performa online archive.
I wrote a short essay for the exhibition Better Call Mark, on view since June 9 at Galeria Fran Reus, Palma de Mallorca. Featuring works by Albrecht / Wilke, Arno Beck, Johannes Bendzulla, Pierre Clement, Olga Fedorova, Marian Garrido, Joan Heemskerk, Eva & Franco Mattes, Mario Santamaria, Bartomeu Sastre, Mathew Zefeldt, Better Call Mark focuses on the dissolution between the purely physical and online. My take on it is available online as pdf, and in this post, right after the break.
Mark is, of course, Zuch. The image above is a screenshot from Joan Heemskerk’s contribution to the show: the website and installation Aquay (2022)
Sull’ultimo numero di Artribune, Valentina Tanni ha curato un bello speciale sul metaverso, invitando artisti e autori (Marco Cadioli, Miltos Manetas, Matteo Lupetti, Auriea Harvey) a dire la loro. Io dico la mia a pagina 75.
Domenico Quaranta, “Il metaverso come spazio espositivo”, in Artribune, n. 64, gennaio – febbraio 2022, p. 75