Our indifference to plants is odd. Odd and dangerous. First, because without the plants, humans and other animals would have no oxygen to breathe. Meals would be remarkably boring too. Second, because while we pay plants little attention, multinationals and states with a colonising view of the world know that they are an immense source of economic profit that can be appropriated, controlled, or even modified if needed. We see the consequences of this extractivist rationale in newspapers every day (even though they might not always occupy the front/home pages): large companies are claiming inte ..read more

Petunias can be red, blue, violet and white. Not orange. Never. Unless they have been genetically modified. Klaus Pichler, The Petunia Carnage, 2022 Klaus Pichler, The Petunia Carnage, 2022 Klaus Pichler, The Petunia Carnage, 2022 In 2015, plant scientist Teemu Teeri saw orange petunias in a planter at Helsinki railway station. He took a couple of flowers to his lab for genetic sequencing. As he suspected, the petunias were of transgenic origin. The orange flowers have since been linked to an open-field trial of GM plants that took place at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Resear ..read more

Algorithms of Resistance. The Everyday Fight against Platform Power, by Tiziano Bonini, associate professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at Università di Siena, and Emiliano Treré, Reader in Data Agency and Media Ecologies at Cardiff University and Codirector of the Data Justice Lab. The book is published by MIT Press and available in Open Access and in paperback. Countless essays detail how algorithms discriminate, exploit and oppress. Fewer investigate how users appropriate and subvert algorithms for their own benefit. Drawing on their own fieldwork and interviews with workers a ..read more

Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking again and again about Trilogy, an installation by Rayyane Tabet at MUDAM in Luxembourg. I wasn’t planning to write about it but the work is haunting me. I think about it when i read about Israeli strikes killing civilians in Lebanon, when i see the videos of Palestinians whose homes have been ransacked by settlers or when i hear about the alarming levels of pollution in Beirut. And i think about it when i see Klein Blue. Installation view of ‘A Model: Prelude’ by Rayyane Tabet at Mudam, Luxembourg. Photo: © Studio Rémi Villaggi | Mudam Luxembourg ..read more

My favourite game. Fotografia e videogioco, by artist and teacher Simone Santilli. Published by Postmedia Books. The books i enjoy the most cover topics i know very little about in an entertaining, yet erudite way. Or vice versa. My favourite game. Fotografia e videogioco not only explores a field i’m fairly ignorant of -the osmosis between photography and gaming- but it is in Italian. Which makes it doubly interesting because i always welcome viewpoints that do not solely focus on US/UK research. Leonardo Magrelli, West of Here, 2021 Robie Cooper, Alter Ego, Jason – Rurouni, 2007 Alan But ..read more

In 1895, Louis Lumière presented a private demo of what is often called “the first motion picture of cinematographic history”: La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon (usually translated in English as Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory.) The 45 second film was shot by Lumière at the photographic factory he owned with his brother Auguste in Lyon-Montplaisir. Louis Lumière, La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon (All 3 Versions), 1895 The pioneering work puts workers, and the factory, at the core of cinematic history. The irony is that you never see the inside of the factory. Nor do you catch a glimp ..read more

Nicolás Kisic Aguirre builds rolling, gyrating, unruly machines that have been exhibited all over the world. Sometimes, however, they escape gallery spaces and take to the streets of Valparaíso or Boston where they amplify the voice of citizens protesting against racist deportations, inequality or the presence of a war criminal in town. Whether they are deployed in artistic performances or used as a tool to broadcast political messages, Kisic Aguirre’s works challenge the boundaries of our common understanding of the city and the spaces we share in it. The Momoprot, for example, is a mobile pr ..read more

What Design Can’t Do. Essays on Design and Disillusion, by writer, artist and designer Silvio Lorusso. Published by Set Margins. Graphic design: Federico Antonini. Do you remember when design vowed to make sense of “complexity”, vanquish all the world’s ailments and add layers of “seamless” enchantment to our existence? When design was a positive force of change? Those promises might still be there today, but our collective faith in the power of ‘creative destruction’ and boundless innovation has dwindled. In his book, artist and designer Silvio Lorusso investigates the reasons behind the sens ..read more

This year, Alyaksandr Lukashenka will be celebrating 30 years of ruling Belarus with an iron fist. The last presidential election, which took place in August 2020, was heavily contested. There were massive protests and ruthless repression of dissent. Today, Belarusian authorities continue to curb the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Torture, suspicious deaths in custody and other ill-treatment remain endemic. The justice system is systematically abused to eradicate dissent. Freedom of expression remains severely restricted. Dozens of independent journalists ..read more

Interest in shamanism is expanding faster than any other spiritual practices in the Western world. In England and Wales alone, the number of people saying they practice has risen from 650 in 2011 to 8,000 in 2021. Perhaps these numbers shouldn’t surprise me as much as they did. While techno-sciences are expanding the physical and intellectual limits of the human body, more and more people are wondering what it means to be human. Why COVID has claimed so many victims. Why there seems to be so little we can do to control the catastrophic effects of climate breakdown. Or why those same innovatio ..read more