Interview >> Marco Mancuso directeur de Digicult

DIGICULT est un projet culturel italien et une plateforme impliquée dans la culture digitale et les arts électroniques, dirigée par Marco Mancuso depuis janvier 2005. Non subventionnée et avec une approche culturelle activiste, digicult existe grâce à la participation de 40 professionnels, qui représentent le premier réseau de journalistes, commissaires, artistes et critiques dans le champs de la culture électronique en Italie./

DIGICULT is an Italian cultural project and platform involved in digital culture and electronic arts. The DIGICULT project is directed by Marco Mancuso, from January 2005 without any money supporting and with a cultural activist approach. It is based on the active participation of 40 professional people about, who represent the first wide Italian Network of journalists, curators, artists and critics in the field of electronic culture.

>>> DIGICULT.IT

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Cette année Marco Mancuso est l'un des invités du Marché International de l’Art Numérique (MIAN)/ is one of the guests for the International Marketplace for Digital Arts (IMDA)

Nous lui avons posé quelques questions (seulement en anglais)/ we've asked him few questions:


Could you tell me how Digicult was born, how has this project been developed?

Digicult was born from an idea I had some years ago: after working and moving within the universe of growing digital art and culture (festivals, meetings, exhibitions) in Europe, I noticed that something was happening also in Italy in terms of people (critics, curators, journalists, even artists) involved in this kind of culture and art forms. In the same time I noticed that, all this people, some of them were still friends and collegues of mine or guys starting working in the field, were not connected one each other in a unique project.

Of course, in Italy we had at that time, some important experiences of shared cultural movements (specifically in what was called net art and political hacktivism) that were well known also internationally. But, in general, expect some solo pioneer experiences of few Italian critics, curators or journalists that started some years before us and was connected to worldwide digital art communities, I had the feeling that a new generation of younger professional people was growing up and had the same needs of mine: being part of a new project, sharing ideas and contacts, having a platform of information, writing for a specific and focused magazine, building up a carrier even without the help of cultural institution or the chance to work for big cultural companies, show and test themselves with an international audience and net of foreign curators, critics, artists, cultural centers, museums, galleries worldwide. These were all the reasons why I started Digicult (as an information and journalistic website, collecting news from the chaotic network of international mailing lists, but also creating contacts with museums, galleries, centers, festivals, cultural platforms) and the magazine Digimag, for which I literally called and contacted about 20 people that in my opinion could be interested to write for the specific areas of the magazine: net art, hacktivism, software art, electronic music, audio video, video art, art and science, performing art, new media, design.

From the very beginning I decided to translate everything in English: both the website and the magazine, because I hardly wanted to show our work also outside Italy, to make understand the international community about Italy as a whole growing cultural movement, able to make a path also without the help of blind, politicized and old national cultural institutions.

After few month, the word spread, the project grow up step by step, I changed the design of the website to host a quickly growing amount of contents, and in these years I contacted (or I was contacted) other people to join the project and write for the magazine: now the network is made up by 40 people about, some of them changed in these years, some others are still there writing every month from the very beginning….Digicult senators.

During these years I first worked on some web 2.0 strategies (like tags divisions, rss feeds and lately the social networks) and I also developed some side projects, like the audiovisual podcast Digipod which is connected to the world of the worldwide net labels, the newsletter service Diginews and recently the art agency Digimade. The first two, were important also in my idea to create a real net platform (website-magazine-podcast-newsletter) which could share and push contents within Digicult community and which could be useful for national and international partners (festivals and events in general) promo communications .

The art agency was really a challenge, and it still is: the idea was, one side to collect in a unique project all Digicult curatorial projects, events & media partnerships and on the other side to work side by side with some Italian artists, working specifically in the field of audiovisual art & design, promoting them worldwide (using the contacts I collected in the years travelling). I didn’t have time to work on that at my best, due of my terrible lack of time, but I promised to cover the pattern within the end of this year. At the moment Digicult is still growing up, even if we have the same historical problems, due to the lack of help from private investors or cultural institutions: I stopped searching, I’m too much disappointed and tired about that. I work on my own strategies…


What kind of informations we find on Digicult web portal ?

As I told you, infos are collected, re-edited and translated from international mailing lists and from a network of contacts I build up in years made of festivals, galleries, museums, labs, centers in Italy and worldwide. These infos are mainly: cultural events, artistic projects, exhibitions, live performances, festivals. In general, what happen in the world of digital art and culture today.

But, in the years, the web portal had the need to collect, organize and show all the contents and materials produced by Digicult: for this reason I had to re-design the web portal 2 times in those years. At the moment, on the web portal, you find on the second the third column some specific contents related to Digicult curatorial projects and events, but also to the last interviews we did on the magazine Digimag, the last critical texts we wrote on the magazine Digimag, the last reports of festivals and events we followed.

But you can find also our active media partnerships (both italian and international), international calls for artists and projects.

And finally, you can browse all the past issues of the magazine Digimag, you can listen to the Sonar Radio (as a partnership they developed with few website on the net), you can browse the web portal through our tag division, you can subscribe to rss feeds, you can join our flickr photo round and, most important thing, you can read all the articles and interviews we produced (divided by author or by area) in those years though our archive.


What are the different media and activities composing Digicult platform ?

Even if I think I answered yet in the first question, I could say that at the moment Digicult platform activites are: a journalistic and information activity with the web platform Digicult, a critical activity with interviews, articles, report on the magazine Digimag, a collecting activity of electronic music and videos from international net labels with the podcast Digipod, an inner information activity within our community with the newsletter Diginews, a promoting activity of Italian artists and theorist worldwide through the art agency Digimade. But also, a deep connection activity with the international community connected to digital art and culture: this is totally important for me and for Digicult, the only chance we have to grow up, to have good chance to work, to keep contact with other critics, curators, artists, people that we care of for what they do. When you come from a cultural third world like Italy is at the moment (and in the last years), you cannot understand how much it is important and how strong is our feeling on it.


Who constitute Digicult's team and digital culture and electronic arts experts ?

I usually coordinate and work daily on updates, strategies and projects by myself, as director and editor of the project. Also because as I told you, all the work on Digicult is for free and I cannot pay people working daily 8 hours or more with me. But, we now have an editorial staff made by a great programmer (Luca Restifo), a podcast editor (Giuseppe Cordaro), a press officer and editor (Claudia D’Alonzo), a translating team from english to italian and from italian to english for the magazine (Ali ustun, Valeria Grillo, Emanuela Cassol, Chiara Resmini, Luisa Bertolatti, Monica Fonatana, Carla Borrelli).

Of course, nothing could have been done without the work and support of all the people that wrote and collaborated with the magazine Digimag during these years. The are the names of some of them now: Luigi Pagliarini, Tatiana Bazzichelli, Bertram Niessen, Teresa De Feo, Luigi Ghezzi, Giulia Baldi, Domenico Quaranta, Lorenzo Tripodi, Massimo Schiavoni, Monica Ponzini, Valentina Tanni, Annamaria Monteverdi, Tiziana Gemin, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Silvia Bianchi, Francesca Valsecchi, Claudia D'Alonzo, Barbara Sansone, Alessandro Massobrio, Eleonora Oreggia, Giulia Simi, Silvia Scaravaggi, Maresa Lippolis, Alessio Galbiati, Giuseppe Cordaro, Antonio Caronia, Clemente Pestelli, Davide Anni, Donata Marletta, Valeria Merlini, Stefano Raimondi, OtherehtO, Loretta Borrellli, Carla Langella, Marco Riciputi, Elena Gianni, Matteo Milani. And others that went out from the project in the last years, but that I must thanks as well and that you can find on Digicult archive.


What does it mean to you, to see [op7] from otolab at Elektra festival?

I remember how op7 was born. At that time (2006) my and otolab were starting our collaboration in terms of curator-artist. In my opinion they are, without any doubt, the most talented, experienced, potential and focused audiovisual artists in Italy: so, when I was invited to curate and Audiovisual art section of Mixed Media festival in 2006 in Milan inside an ex-industrial hangar, I decided to gave otolab a commission for a site specific audiovisual project, about that such enormous, amazing, and immersive locations. Inside this hangar a permanent sculptur Belgian Anselm Kiefer’s installation is placed: the “Seven Heavenly Towers�, seven 20meters high post industrial towers representing the connection between the earth and the heaven, human and divine.

Otolab (discussing also with me) projected an audiovisual trip divided in 7 chapters that represent these 7 towers, paying tribute to our Italian art tradition to optical (op) art. At the first time, they were 9 people on the stage, managing audiovisual materials for a spazialized sound system and 5 screens: a small audiovisual orchestra, something that I never saw again anywhere. In the years, the project was refined and now cold be done by 3 performer for 3 screens: but it becomes more and more precise, live, immersive, elegant, synesthetic, powerful, surprising, various. Of course, it needs a perfect environment to express itself: a dark and immersive atmosphere, a good and big projection, a spazialized sound system, an addicted audience. And I can say, the Usine C concert room, is one of the best place for audiovisual and live media performances I ever seen in my life: and I’m really looking forward to join op7 there, you’ll see the enthusiastic and spontaneus reaction of the audience…I’m totally sure about that

>>> OTOLAB.NET

8 mai/ Friday, May 8th
21h/ 9 p.m. >> Usine C
Otolab [op7] - Ryoji Ikeda test pattern [live set] - TIND [trame00] - Simon-Pierre Gourd & Lise-Hélène Larin [Numbers 1_Orogénèse et 2_Éclat]

>>> Digicult à propos d'/ about Elektra

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>>> Experience & Infos [nouveau site/ new website]

>>> Learn ++ & see video & links


Lucy & Elektra