Casting A Spell In Computational Regimes Event

Lecture By Arianna Forte: Casting A Spell In Computational Regimes: Ritual Practices For A Transfeminist Counter-apocalypse

Duration: 45 min
Start: 7pm

Divinatory readings of the flow of data and ads generated by our smartphones, ritual sessions of digital “healing” from the data trauma suffered on social media, spells inscribed in the codes of raster files to reclaim our cultural identities by taking selfies. Who are the witches who navigate digital systems and interpret them with ritual practices between the artistic, the magical and the political?

From a critical reflection on the ongoing cultural and existential transformation that sees data and computation as phenomena that have re-signified our presence in the global and hyper-connected world and that reveal new forms of domination and subjugation, the present investigation is an examination of artistic practices envied as “rituals of resistance” at these systems.

Specifically, a close look will be made at the phenomenon that is referred to by the author as “Digital Esoterism”. Pointing, to the new generations of artists who in the post-covid era adopt the archetype of witchcraft to navigate systems of computational oppression: from Cyberwitches claiming a 2.0 spirituality, Digital Doulas proposing data healing, to Digital Tarot Readers in which algorithms are conceived as divinatory prediction systems. They claim a transfeminist approach in direct connection with the experiences of Cyberfeminism, which since the spread of the Internet had highlighted the structures of domination, marginalization and oppression inherent in technological systems.

At the end of the lecture there will be a time for sharing the personal “rituals”proposed by the guests and the local art community.

This lecture aims to present the themes and initial results of the research Casting a spell in computational regimes: ritual practices for a trans-feminist counter-apocalypse that curator Arianna Forte is conducting as part of the Italian Council (2023) program supported by the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity.