Currently based in Los Angeles, CA, US.
Mattia Casalegno is a multidisciplinary artist who’s able to connect fields and disciplines so distant as neuroscience, fashion, biology, electronic music, chemistry and architecture producing works dealing with notions of perception, synaesthesia, audiovisual improvisation and system theory.
He often collaborates with scientists, musicians, architects and designers in the production of interactive installations, live-media performances and sensorial-participative interfaces.
His aesthetics are driven by the research in the relationships between the fields of information (in-forms, to give form), biology (bio-logos, discourse on living) and ecology (in the Batesonian term), pointing on the centrality of code as tools and metaphor of his poetic.
In 2001 he co-founded the seminal Italian vj collective Kinotek. Since 2005 he is part of the international new media agency Antimateria.org and in the years 2007-2009 collaborated closely with the Belgian audiovisual platform Cimatics.
He is currently affiliated with the department of Design and Media Art and the Art|Sci Center at the Univeristy of California Los Angeles, and writes regularly about art and technology on the online magazine Digicult.it.
His works and performances have been showed in institutions, among others, such as MADRE -Contemporary Art Museum, PAN, Roma Auditorium in Italy, Mutek in Canada, Le Cube in France, OFFF in Spain, iMAL and Cimatics in Brussels, LACMA -Los Angeles County Art Museum and LACDA in US.
Since 2001 he with Kinotek he participated at several international festivals such as ContactEurope, Dissonanze, Arezzo Wave/Elettrowave , Italian Live Media (IT), AVIT (DE), OFFF (ES).
In 2002 he joined the Italian experimental audio-visual trio MetaXu and since 2002 he started a prolific collaboration with electro-acustic composer and artist Martux M aka Maurizio Martusciello, performing at festivals such as Mutek (CA), Batofar Recherche l’Italie (FR), Sintesi, International JazzFestival and RomaEuropa festival (IT).
In 2005 he performed the “Grainscapes I” audiovisual project with S.Roux (Aperstartjee) and G.Davis (Carpark, Autumn rec) at the Netmage festival (IT) and in 2007 “Info-Naturae 1.0” with composer Emanuele Errante (Apegenine rec) at Interferenze festival and Sant’Arcangelo dei Teatri (IT).
In 2005 he designed live visuals for Italian singer Meg (ex 99 posse, multiformis)’s Italian summer tour produced by Barley Arts promotion Italia and become active in the staff of the official Italian vj community portal vjcentral.it as project manager and co-curated the first DVD compilation of emerging Italian Vjs produced by ArezzoWave/Electrowave 2006 festival.
In 2007 curated the AV mash-up performance Fuoriorari(a) with E.Ghezzi, M.Martusciello, M. Masullo at the Toledo Gallery in Naples. In the same period curated the concept and developing of the interactive installation “FuoriGioco”, based on the theme of how infancy is revealed through syndicate systems and news feed, with multimedia artist Carlo Caloro in collaboration with “Accademia di Arte Drammatica Silvio D’Amico” in Rome. In 2008 he presents his own AV project “Strutture Dissipative”- inspired by the scientific and philosophical findings of Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine – at Romaeuropa festival (IT) and the audiovisual installation “X-Scape 07” with Martux_M at Auditorium in Rome.
In the same year he receives commissions by the production company Villa Eugenie (BE) for the design of the generative installation “Two Walls Dialogue” at the Jean Paul Gaultier “maDame” opening party and for the visual concept of “Sonia Rykiel 50’ ans” show premièred at the F/W fashion week in Paris.
At the end of 2008 he co-firm with Michael Langeder the project “Disturbed City BXL”, an urban multi-platform project produced by Cimatics and exhibited at the TAG Galley, Brussels.
In 2010 he is co-author of the audiovisual installation “Il Gesto Sospeso”, a collaboration with Maurizio Martusciello and fashion designer Roberto Capucci, produced by AltaRomaAltaModa and showed at the Hadrian Temple in Rome.
In the same year he shows “Unstable Empathy”, an EEG based relational installation sponsored by Epoc technologies, in collaboration with neuropsychologist Enzo Varriale for the Media Facade Festival 2010 and Nuit Blanche in Brussels, produced by iMAL (BE).
In the same year he exhibits the video installation “Fibrillation” at the MUSE event at LACMA in Los Angeles, and shows his first of a series of wearable (a)sensorial devices, “The Open”, at the White Gallery in Los Angeles.
18.10.2010 – 18.11.2010 Future Selves, The Big Screen Project, Manhattan, NYC, US
14.10.2010 – 20.10.2010 I Am Here Now, Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, US
09.09.2010 – X-Scape 07 screening at LACDA Los Angeles, US
15.04.2010 – 06.05.2010 – Magmart festival, PAN contemporary art museum, Naples, IT
15.11.2008 – 06.12.2008 – DisturbedCity BXL, TAG gallery, Brussels, BE
31.01.2008 – 26.07.2008 Optronica exhibition, Le Cube, Issy, FR
14.12.2007 – 15.01.2008 X-Scape 07 installation, Artist’s Corner Auditorium, Rome, IT
18.03.2007 Optronica – “Linfa” video screening – BFI MAX Cinema, London, UK
05.06.2002 Explodingcinema – Rumors Of War video – Seattle, US
Selected festival appearances and live media performances
29.04.2010 MADREnalina, MADRE Contemporary Art Museum, Naples, IT
16.11.2009 Play With Fire, 1717 Troutman, Brooklyn, NY, US
13.11.2009 Prospectives 09, Fleishmann Planetarium, Reno, NV, US
01.09.2009 Sonica Festival, Parco del Treja, IT
14.12.2007 Meet in Town, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, IT
29.11.2007 An insolent Noise, Laboratorio per l’Arte Contemporanea Teseco, Pisa, IT
23.11.2007 Cimatics – IAND interactive installation – Beursschouwburg, Brussels, BE
11.07.2007 Santarcangelo dei Teatri festival, Sant’Arcangelo, IT
04.03.2007 Galleria Toledo – “Fuoriorari(a)”, Galleria Toledo, Naples, IT
30.11.2006 Screen Music festival, Fortezza da Basso, Florence, IT
03.08.2006 Interferenze festival, S.Martino di Valle Caudina, Salerno, IT
09.12.2005 IXEM festival, Venice, IT
04.06.2005 Mutek festival, ExCentris, Montreal, CA
27.01.2005 Netmage festival, Teatro Manzoni, Bologna, IT
23.10.2004 JazzFestival, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, IT
21.03.2004 Sensoralia – visual set for Telefon Tel Aviv (hefty), Palladium, Rome, IT
10.05.2003 Contact Europe I, Leoncavallo, Milan, IT
22.10.2003 Dissonanze, Rome, IT
08.04.2003 Sintesi 02, Naples, IT
15.12.2002 Batofar Recherche l’Italie , Batofar, Paris, FR
12.11.2002 RomaEuropa Festival , Brancaleone, Rome, IT
BOOK: NMD – New Media Design, A. Cecchi, Sometti ed. 2008
DVD: X-Scape, video design and packaging, Percistencebit, 2007
DVD: Mixing Identities, concept and curating, MinusHabens, 2006
CD: Migrations by Emanuele Errante, bonus video track, Apegenine rec, 2005
CD: Rumors of War by Metaxu, bonus video track, No-Type, 2004
The Open, We Make Money Not Art, 2010, EN
Strutture Dissipative, Actual Virtual #11, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2010, EN
Mattia Casalegno – Dissipative Structures & Cartesian thought-forms, Data is Nature, 2009, EN
X-Scape: in fuga dal linguaggio, Digimag, 2008, IT
Intervista a Mattia Casalegno, Teknemedia, 2006, IT
Experimenting new interactions, Digimag, 2006, EN
Mattia Casalegno, BMW Serie 1: One like no one, 2006, IT