Mattia Casalegno

Mattia Casalegno

Mattia Casalegno is an Italian interdisciplinary artist, live media performer, and installation artist working in a wide range of media. Her multidisciplinary work is influenced by post-conceptualism and digital art, and has been defined as relational, immersive, and participatory. His practice explores the effects that new media have on our societies, investigating the relationships between technology, the objects we create, our subjectivities, and the ways in which these relationships play out with one another.

His work has been widely exhibited and published in publications such as “A Touch of Code” ed. Gestalten Books, "New Media Design" ed. Sometti and "Deleuze and Audiovisual Art", Manchester Metropolitan University. He received a Center for Cultural Innovation and a Young Italians Scholarship; Winner of Electrowave in 2003 and finalist of the New Technological Art Awards in 2014. In the last year he was artist in residence, among others, at Budafabriek Kunstcentrum in Belgium and Eyebeam, NY.

In 2001, he co-founded the Kinotek project with Giovanni D'Aloia, a seminal Rome-based VJing and live-media group, among the first Italian collectives to use digital tools during their performances. His work often revolves around Deleuzian ideas. According to reports, he expressed his interest in "painting forces" and the use of audiovisual languages as "affects in their pure state." In a 2010 interview, discussing one of his projects, he alluded to Deleuze's concept of the ritornell and the ability of structured sounds, notably rhythm, to define a space. It often deploys technologies, ideas, and aesthetics borrowed from science. He used EEG and Neurofeedback technologies in various installations and performances.

In other projects, Casalegno addresses themes of ecology, systems theory, and biology, such as in Strutture Dissipative (2009), and the interactive audiovisual installation Il Gesto Sospeso, designed in collaboration with fashion designer Roberto Capucci and artist Maurizio Martusciello, and premiered. in Hadrian's Temple for Rome fashion week in 2010.