Davide Grassi

(Bergamo, Italy, 1970)

A conceptual artist, his work has strong social and political connotations and has an intermediate approach. He has worked on several projects that focus on the intersection between art, viewer and market, as well as examining virtual reality. From 2002 to 2003 he worked on a project with multimedia artist Igor Stromajer titled problemarket.com, a virtual platform where the actions of companies dealing with problems are floated. He produced “machinaZOIS” in 2004, an electromechanical patron that financially supports contemporary artists and artistic productions. DemoKino – Virtual Biopolitical Agora”, is a virtual parliament that, through current cinematographic parables, gives voters the opportunity to decide on issues that are becoming the essence of modern politics. In 2005 he established the RE:akt! platform. which examines the role of the media in manipulating perceptions and creating (post)modern historical myths and contemporary mythology. The Brainloop project is an interactive performance platform that allows a subject to navigate a virtual space simply by imagining specific motor commands. Founded Aksioma – Institute of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana. In 2007 Grassi changed her name to Janez Jansa, in a project in which she continues working with two other artists.

Graphic documentation of your Brainscore performance is presented in MediaLab. In it, two operators create a disembodied communication system using brain waves and eye movement. Between them they define a new digital discourse in a virtual space, without using traditional and established means of communication. Positioned in parallel, both players establish a dialogue through 3D objects. On a large screen, each of them is represented by avatars. The operators' task is to educate their corresponding virtual representation through a series of operations and commands. These are executed through a direct connection of the neural networks of each user (micro) and the Internet's telematic networks (macro). The virtual environment on the screen is represented by an array of twenty password-based objects derived from the home page of an anonymous hacker. These specify features such as expression, color, texture and sounds. The set of these objects establishes a communication code, from which the avatars are generated and evolve. When these virtual beings begin to come to life, or rather, autonomy, communication and the exchange of information between them begins.