10 Questions with Giulia Guasta Guarnaccia
Giulia Guasta Guarnaccia (b. 1999 in Milan, Italy) is a digital artist and an intersectional activist; she also considers herself an interdisciplinary researcher and a data archaeologist. Her disability has led her to a greater sensitivity and a different way of perceiving the world. In 2024, she graduated in New Technologies of Art at Brera's Academy of Fine Arts in Milan (Italy); she's currently attending an MFA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at NABA in Milan and a Postgraduate Programme in Ethics and AI at UniTo.
ARTIST STATEMENT
In her work, she mixes social engagement with varied artistic practices ranging from net art to sculpture. To better understand the world and its layered complexity, a cross-disciplinary and plural practice approach is crucial. In contemporary society, artists are like philosophers in the past; there's a strong need to go deeper, to dare, to shout. What is going wrong, and how can people collaborate mutually? What she tries to do is always linked to ethical issues; there's a strong need to deconstruct ourselves going through privileges and marginalities.
INTERVIEW
Please introduce yourself to our readers. Who are you, and when did you first become interested in making art?
I am a young artist and activist born and raised in Milan, Italy. I have always approached the world and its complex dynamics with a multidisciplinary and, above all, curious mindset. While I had to familiarize myself with theoretical disciplines, my relationship with art has been symbiotic and innate since childhood. It was never just an interest or something I discovered at a certain point in my life; rather, it has always been a necessity and a way to express myself creatively alongside other forms of expression. I cannot imagine myself not being an artist; it is an integral part of my identity. Similarly, choosing art as my field of study has not meant abandoning theory and the disciplines I deeply love, such as philosophy, physics, sociology, pedagogy, biology, ethics, and many others. On the contrary, studying and creating art without a theoretical foundation or research would reduce it to producing aesthetic objects for economic purposes, but art is so much more than that. As both an activist and an artist, I integrate social and political engagement into my artistic practices. For me, art must never lose its transformative potential in the social sphere.
Can you share how your disability has influenced your artistic vision and the way you approach your practice as a digital artist?
Being a disabled person has meant understanding and directly experiencing the privileges and marginalizations within the global system. This journey of deconstruction and awareness was made possible thanks to the existence of a network of activists sensitive to these issues, with whom I strive to practice alternatives. I grew up with hypersensitivity and sensory overstimulation, which inevitably led me to perceive and analyze the world and social dynamics more deeply and attentively than is typical. Having a visual disability and making art in a society where sight is the primary sense may seem like an oxymoron, an absurdity. However, reality, in all its complexity, can be interpreted and experienced in countless ways and at various levels of depth. Physical senses are not everything, and they often deceive us. What we experience in different ways is partial and mediated, filtered through perception. So, to return to the point, it is not the disability itself that has influenced my art-making but rather the sensitivity and ability to process and analyze the world within and around me. The artistic practices I use are manifold because they adapt to the concept or idea at hand. Before any practical design or development phase, there is a stimulating and challenging phase of theoretical research on a theme. Usually, that theme becomes an obsession for me; I feel the need to know more, to understand, to gather information, and to find connections. It's often an investigative, almost journalistic, process. This phase then transitions to a calmer moment with the practical development of the work, during which the way the idea takes physical form occurs quite naturally.
What motivated you to pursue studies in both visual arts and curatorial studies? How do these disciplines inform each other in your work?
Even when my works are not directly participatory or interactive, they are interdependent there is a pathway, or rather, a rhizome of pathways. I enjoy the idea of combining theoretical and scientific knowledge with the art on display. In public programs, my curatorial studies play a central role, allowing me to collaborate actively in the organization and management of events. I like to think of exhibitions as integral moments within a broader collective and individual process and journey, an experience that is fundamentally different from a sterile walk through gallery spaces.
Your artistic practice ranges from net art to sculpture. How do you decide which medium best suits the concept you want to express?
As I mentioned earlier, practices and languages adapt to ideas and content, and it cannot happen the other way around, as it would fail to effectively communicate the underlying concept. There are practices that prove to be more suitable than others for conveying certain content. However, there is also the practical aspect of feasibility in production, which, while not central, is undoubtedly a limiting factor. When ideas are layered and complex, giving them a physical form can sometimes seem to diminish their depth. Nonetheless, finding both material and aesthetic solutions is a challenge for an artist.
Your work explores themes of privilege, marginality, and ethical issues. Can you elaborate on how you approach these themes creatively and conceptually?
What I aim to do with my work is highlight the marginalization of many and the privileges of the few. The fundamental goal is to focus on inequalities, critical issues, and the asymmetry of power in terms of the ability to act and react or howmuch passivity is normalized, along with the normalization of violence in general. Most people don't associate technology with violence, and that is precisely a form of privilege. From a creative perspective, if I can call it that, I try to emphasize the contrast between elements. Conceptually, it is essential to process as many layers of reality as possible, avoiding binary thinking and polarization. However, from an aesthetic point of view, the dualism of form and the contrast of materials work particularly well in my case. I emphasize the inherent conflict between the organic and the inorganic, between the natural and the artificial. While visually, the contrast is highlighted and emphasized, ideally, the opposite happens: a convergence. In installations, particularly in works like Server the Planet, Climate Evidences, and Living Surfaces, there is a relationship, albeit a conflicted one, between the natural and the artificial, in which humanity has increasingly separated and divided. Even in technological tools, there is something organic. Let us not forget how much of the earth is present in chips, batteries, and all electronic components.
Intersectional activism is central to your practice. How do you address the challenges of merging activism with artistic creation?
Combining art and activism is not a simple challenge, partly because both are active roles that expose me and can be uncomfortable not only for the position they place me in but also for the position I hope they place the subjects I address in some of my work. For instance, since I published Data Center[ed], there have been several attempts to attack the website. While conducting research on oil companies and corporations owning mineral deposits, some tried to uncover my identity simply because I dared to search for and connect pieces of publicly available information that no one pays attention to, which is convenient for them. This is just one of many instances where being both an artist and an activist creates tension. Yet, at the same time, it confirms that whatever I'm doing is working. The difficulty in this union lies in not succumbing to the horror that unfortunately spreads everywhere, in managing to transform the pain and suffering caused by inequalities into something that challenges the current state of affairs. At the very least, it's about trying not to normalize everything. Since we live in a stratified, rhizomatic, and complex reality, all areas intersect, or rather, theyinterconnect. The application of this term within social and political struggles is owed to feminism, which, before any other movement, recognized the interconnection and interdependence between fields and the correlation between inequalities. Intersectionality and having a multidisciplinary approach are clearly linked. The awareness of a connected and intersected world creates the need to address its issues in a multifaceted way both theoretically and, in my case, artistically in practice.
You've described contemporary artists as modern-day philosophers. How do you perceive the role of artists in today's society, and what responsibilities do they carry, in your opinion?
Unfortunately, what artists represent today is, in most cases, far removed from what they should be doing, especially for those whose roles carry ethical and moral responsibilities. This goes beyond who someone is; it's more a matter of coherence between who one is and how one acts. The disconnect lies in the fact that, in this historical, political, and socio-economic period, art has become synonymous with capitalism. This has led many artists to depend on the art market, which pushes them to produce aestheticized works optimized for generating economic value. This condition compromises the true role of artists, which should instead be to initiate processes of awareness, foster sensitivity, and present creative perspectives on contemporary issues. Do governments or corporations fear artists? Not because artists are inherently dangerous, but this question seeks to highlight the lack of impact that art has today on the urgent issues of our time. In fact, art has often become one of the tools used in corporate "washing" strategies. I understand that my view is quite radical, but it is a necessary stance in a context where neutrality is a lie. Today's galleries are filled with the products of capitalism, purely aesthetic objects that make no effort to engage with social subjects. This does not mean that art must always be political or that all artists should be politicized. I am, and it works for me. However, taking a position within the global system is essential, if only to use one's own privilege to support the marginalization of others.
You emphasize collaboration and mutuality in your work. Could you share an example of a project where collaboration brought new insights or unexpected outcomes?
In the case of the web project Data Center[ed], the collaboration is indirect. There is an entire online community thatmaps locations on open-source maps or ongoing projects where data centers and submarine cables are specifically listed and highlighted. From a more participatory standpoint, direct involvement will be evident in future projects.
As someone actively involved in the dialogue between technology, ethics, and art, what do you envision for the future of digital art in addressing societal challenges?
Art, like other fields, is experiencing the influence of the technologies shaping the world, particularly with regard to the use of generative Artificial Intelligence. I foresee an increase in their use within the art world. However, the recent debates on their legitimacy revive past discussions on what constitutes art and whether technical reproducibility, in this case, also qualifies as art, alongside significant legal and ethical issues. Our fortune is that it's not necessary to use complex means to tell complexity; that's part of the beauty of art. However, for artists like me, who delve into the use of various types of software, programming, and so on, it is even more important to be aware of what these tools are, how they are made, and where they come from. Can technology be used to denounce the impact of technology? Yes, we live in contradictions, but if we share the paradox with the audience, then these practices and languages become tools of resistance, not ofdomination, because I am using them to generate divergences, disruptions, and something unexpected. As a digital artist, if you want to call me that, I believe an active debate on ethics must also be opened within the art world. Globally, we still need to move beyond the romantic vision of art and start treating it as a discipline. If other disciplines address ethics, why not art? There is certainly a need to address climate issues, which some artists have been dealing with, particularly since the 2000s. However, even fewer artists actively position themselves in the debate and believe it's important to understand who the key players are, to become disillusioned with the green economy, and to realize that greenwashing is real, encouraging skepticism towards narratives that produce capital.
Lastly, what are you currently working on, and how do you hope it will contribute to the ongoing conversations around ethics, art, and intersectionality?
At the moment, I am conducting research on algorithmic biases and classification issues that increase the risk of discrimination, raising many concerns, for example, about biometric recognition systems and predictive algorithms. I am currently pursuing a Master's in Ethics and Artificial Intelligence, and the goal is to create a series of investigative works that inevitably touch on macro-themes such as surveillance, racial profiling, technology ethics, and much more. Some might think that everything related to algorithms is a subject for computer science and mathematics, but in reality, there are many other disciplines that intersect with these, such as sociology, philosophy, ethics itself, linguistics, pedagogy, anthropology. Surveillance and environmental impact are somewhat of my obsessions, and I will continue developing projects around them. These are central themes in current debates and will continue to be.
Artist’s Talk
Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.