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(File:MaurizioBolognini.jpg|thumb|Maurizio Bolognini (2004))Maurizio Bolognini (born July 27, 1952) is a post-conceptual media artist. His installations are mainly concerned with the aesthetics of machines,{{citation|title=Machine Art in the Twentieth Century|url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/machine-art-twentieth-century|year=2016|author=Andreas Broeckmann|language=English|publisher=MIT Press|location=Cambridge Ma|isbn=9780262035064}}, pp. 1, 6, 115-116. and are based on the minimal and abstract activation of technological processes that are beyond the artist's control,Mario Costa (2003), New Technologies. Artmedia, University of Salerno, Museo del Sannio, pp. 7-12. at the intersection of generative art, public art and e-democracy.Maurizio Bolognini, "De l'interaction à la démocratie. Vers un art génératif post-digital" / "From interactivity to democracy. Towards a post-digital generative art", Artmedia X Proceedings, Paris, 2010. Also in Ethique, esthétique, communication technologique, Edition L'Harmattan. Paris, 2011, pp. 229-239.

Background

Maurizio Bolognini was born in Brescia, Italy. Before working as a media artist, he received degrees in Urban studies and Social science from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the Università Iuav di Venezia. He worked extensively as a researcher in the field of structured communication techniques (such as the real-time Delphi method), and electronic democracy,{{citation|title=Arte ipercontemporanea|url=http://www.gangemi.com/scheda.asp?id=8849211147|year=2007|author=Simonetta Lux|language=Italian|publisher=Gangemi Editore|location=Rome|isbn=978-88-492-1114-6}}, pp. 480-481. which he later used in some interactive installations. His research interests and a wide range of artworks have focused on three main dimensions of digital technologies:File:Programmed Machines installation by Maurizio Bolognini.jpg|thumb|left|240 px|Sealed Computers (NiceNice— the possibility of delegating his artistic action to the infinite time of the machine, such as in his Programmed Machines. From the beginning (1988), this series introduced the concept of infinity into his work,{{citation|title=Maurizio Bolognini. Programmed Machines 1990-2005|year=2005|editor=Sandra Solimano |publisher=Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art, Neos|location=Genoa|isbn=88-87262-47-0}}. and focused on "the experience of the disproportion (and disjunction) between artist and the artwork, which is made possible by computer-based technologies";Maurizio Bolognini (2008), Postdigitale, Rome: Carocci Editore, p. 24.— the space-time flows of technological communication, and the interplay of geographical and electronic space, which gave rise to works such as Altavista (1996),{{citation|title=Art et Internet|url=http://www.cercledart.com/catalogue_ouvrages/9782_702208649_art_et_internet|year=2008|author=Fred Forest|language=French|publisher=Cercle d'art|location=Paris|isbn=978-2-7022-0864-9}}, pp. 67-71. Antipodes (1998),Vincenzo Cuomo, "L’altro nella rete", Kainós, 2, 2003. and Museophagia (1998–99), in which the use of web-based communication flows focused on their physical infrastructure and was often combined with actions taken over long distance travels;Derrick de Kerckhove, "Museophagia - The art gallery in the age of its digital reproduction", in Piero Cavellini (ed.) (1999), Maurizio Bolognini. Raptus, Brescia: Nuovi Strumenti, pp. 19-25.— the introduction of new forms of interactivity based upon structured communication techniques and e-democracy, which he used in works such as the CIMs (Collective Intelligence Machines, since 2000)Maurizio Bolognini, "De l'interaction à la démocratie. Vers un art génératif post-digital" / "From interactivity to democracy. Towards a post-digital generative art", Artmedia X Proceedings. Paris, 2010. and ICB (Interactive Collective Blue, 2006).Maurizio Bolognini (2008), Postdigitale, Rome: Carocci Editore, pp. 20-21.Some of these works were developed through intense cooperation with Artmedia, the Laboratory of the Aesthetics of Media and Communication, University of Salerno, and the Laboratory Museum of Contemporary Art (MLAC), Sapienza University of Rome. In 2003 the MLAC published a monograph book on Bolognini's work.{{citation|title=Maurizio Bolognini: installazioni, disegni, azioni|year=2003|editor=Domenico Scudero |language=Italian|publisher=Lithos|location=Rome|isbn=88-86584-71-7}}. In 2004 Artmedia organized a show which was aimed to highlight a European tendency in new media art, based on the concept of the technological sublime. The show included works by Roy Ascott (English), Maurizio Bolognini (Italian), Fred Forest (French), Richard Kriesche (Austrian) and Mit Mitropoulos (Greek).Mario Costa (2003), New Technologies: Ascott, Bolognini, Forest, Kriesche, Mitropoulos. Artmedia, University of Salerno, Museo del Sannio.

Programmed Machines / Sealed Computers

File:IMOLAG.JPG|thumb|right|240 px|SMSMS-SMS Mediated Sublime/CIM series (computer, audience cell phones, video projector), (Imola]], Italy, 2006: an interactive installation that aims to involve the audience in the experience of the manipulation and consumption of the technological sublime.)In 1988, Bolognini began using personal computers to generate flows of continuously expanding random images. In the 1990s, he programmed hundreds of these computers and left them to run ad infinitum (most of these are still working now). About his Programmed Machines he wrote: "I do not consider myself an artist who creates certain images, and I am not merely a conceptual artist. I am one whose machines have actually traced more lines than anyone else, covering boundless surfaces. I am not interested in the formal quality of the images produced by my installations but rather in their flow, their limitlessness in space and time, and the possibility of creating parallel universes of information made up of kilometres of images and infinite trajectories. My installations serve to generate out-of-control infinities."Sandra Solimano (ed.) (2005), Maurizio Bolognini. Programmed Machines 1990-2005, Genoa: Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art, Neos, p. 15.The Programmed Machines (and in particular the Sealed Computers, since 1992, whose monitor buses are closed with wax and whose graphic outputs cannot be displayed) "The complete inaccessibility of the vast quantity of visual imagery created by the work references a technological sublimity of the void beneath the digital world”, according to {{citation|title=The Cyborg Subject. Reality, Consciousness, Parallax|year=2016|author=Garfield Benjamin |language=English|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=London|isbn=978-1-137-58448-9}}, p. 86. are considered among his most significant works.Andreas Broeckmann, "Image, Process, Performance, Machine: Aspects of an Aesthetics of the Machinic", in {{citation|title=Media Art Histories|url=http://leonardo.info/isast/leobooks/books/grau2.html|year=2007|editor=Oliver Grau |publisher=MIT Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-262-07279-3}}, pp. 204-205. Andreas Broeckmann, "Software Art Aesthetics", in David Olivier Lartigaud (ed.) (2008) (in French), Art orienté programmation. Paris: Sorbonne University. Inke Arns (2005), "Code as Performative Speech Act" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100801050112weblink |date=2010-08-01 }}, Artnodes, 5, Open University of Catalonia. {{citation|title=Dimenticare l'arte|url=http://www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_Libro.asp?ID=12843&Tipo=Libro&strRicercaTesto=&titolo=dimenticare+l++arte%2E+nuovi+orientamenti+nella+teoria+e+nella+sperimentazione+estetica|year=2006|author=Mario Costa|language=Italian|publisher=Franco Angeli|location=Milan|isbn=978-88-464-6364-7}}, pp. 137-138. Simonetta Lux (2007), Arte ipercontemporanea, Rome: Gangemi Editore, pp. 374-393. Domenico Scudero (ed.) (2003), Maurizio Bolognini: installazioni, disegni, azioni, Rome: Lithos, pp. 9-49. Andres Ramirez Gaviria (2004), Approaches in Multimedia Art, New York: New York Arts Books, pp. 33-35. Pedrini, E. (ed.) (2003), Maurizio Bolognini: Between Utopia and Infochaos, New York: Williamsburg Art & Historical Center. {{citation|title=L'oggetto estetico e la critica|year=2007|author=Mario Costa |language=Italian|publisher=Edisud|location=Salerno|isbn=978-978-8896-15-9}}, pp. 31-43. Mario Costa, Vittorio Cafagna (2005), Phenomenology of New Tech Arts, Artmedia, University of Salerno, Department of Philosophy, Department of Mathematics and Informatics, pp. 18-20. Robert C. Morgan, "Maurizio Bolognini: The Problematic of Art", Luxflux, 4, 2004, pp. 94-101. These Machines were exhibited in many museums and art galleries, in Europe and the United States. In 2003 some sixty Machines were exhibited in three simultaneous shows arranged at the Laboratory Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, the CACTicino Center for Contemporary Art in Switzerland, and the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in New York. In 2005 the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art, Genoa, dedicated a retrospective and a monograph to these works.Sandra Solimano (ed.) (2005), Maurizio Bolognini. Programmed Machines 1990-2005, Genoa: Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art, Neos.Since 2000, Bolognini has concentrated on combining the Programmed Machines with communication devices, as in the Collective Intelligence Machines. These are interactive installations connecting some of his generative machines to the mobile telephone network,Maurizio Bolognini, "The SMSMS Project: Collective Intelligence Machines in the Digital City", Leonardo/MIT Press, 37/2, 2004, pp. 147-149; Maurizio Bolognini, "Infoinstallations et ville numérique", Ligeia. Dossiers sur l’art, 45-48. Paris, 2003, pp. 57-60. to allow a real-time Delphi-like interaction by members of the public. These installations delegate choices to both electronic devices and processes of communication and e-democracy with the aim of involving the audience in new forms of “generative, interactive and public art”.Maurizio Bolognini (2010), "De l'interaction à la démocratie. Vers un art gėnėratif post-digital", Artmedia X Proceedings, Paris. See also {{citation|title=Digital Arts. An Introduction to New Media|year=2014|author= C. Hope, J. Ryan|language=English|publisher=Bloomsbury|location=New York|isbn=9781780933290}}, ch. 9: “Maurizio Bolognini revises the very notion of a digital device to encompass hardware, software and the public. Postdigital artists see digital devices as enmeshed in social processes and patterns. […] New modes of participation offer a variety of possibilities for digital art in which there is a shift from weak modes of public interaction to stronger modes that promote democracy and public decision-making. To be sure, digital art in the future will utilize participatory technologies and mobile communications to a greater extent.”Maurizio Bolognini's work has been considered relevant to the theory of the technological sublime(2003), Mario Costa, New Technologies: Ascott, Bolognini, Forest, Kriesche, Mitropoulos, Artmedia, University of Salerno, Museo del Sannio, pp. 7-12; Andreas Broeckmann, "Software Art Aesthetics", in David Olivier Lartigaud (ed.) (2008), Art orienté programmation, Paris: Sorbonne University. and the aesthetics of flux (as opposed to the aesthetics of form),Mario Costa (2006), Dimenticare l’arte, Milan: Franco Angeli; {{citation|title=Arte contemporanea ed estetica del flusso|year=2010|author=Mario Costa |language=Italian|publisher=Edizioni Mercurio|location=Vercelli|isbn=978-88-95522-61-6}}, pp. 123-124. and has been seen as a further development of conceptual art within neo-technological art.Sandra Solimano, "Metaphors and Moves", in Maurizio Bolognini. Personal Infinity, Brescia: Nuovi Strumenti, pp. 17-18; Robert C. Morgan, "Maurizio Bolognini: The Problematic of Art", Luxflux, 4, 2004, p. 96.

See also

• Conceptual art
• Post-conceptual
• Generative art
• New Media Art
• Public art
• Systems art
• Electronic art
• Interactive art

References

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External links

• Official site for Maurizio Bolognini

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