Title: outside itself

Artist: Federico Díaz

Curator: Alanna Heiss

Venue: Arsenale Novissimo Nappa 90

Jen Owen interviews Federico Diaz:

Jen Owen: Are you excited to be working with the Venice Biennale on this installation?

Federico Diaz: I have a very close relationship with Italy – my family and I lived in Milan in the 80s. I visited the Biennale for the first time when I was nine and we’ve been there every two years ever since. So for me the Biennale is like a long-time dream, and with the new installation outside itself, I’ve now entered it.

JO: How much does this new work connect to previous themes and your general outlook on art?

FD: ‘Outside Itself’ follows up on the project Geometric Death Frequency 141, which is now at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The character and creative process are similar. In both cases, the entire form of the installation is based on algorithms and assembled by robots. ‘Outside Itself’ is a new evolutionary phase in which visitors walking through the installation have a direct impact on the resulting form.

JO: How important are aesthetic concerns? For example the black spheres?

FD: I have long been fascinated by the space we do not perceive and which is more significant for me than the reality we are able see. Our senses are limited and what is visible is not necessarily what is important. Black is the manifestation of the space that creates us. Black spheres represent photons.

JO: What do you feel will be gleaned from the finished sculpture, when all the people have come and gone and influenced its form? Do you feel it will be a ‘readable’ representation of the visitor group, or is it intended to be a more impenetrable mechanical reflection?

FD: Visitors will see three parts of the installation. The first part is the space where robots stick together the structure composed of black spheres. The second space that visitors walk through gradually fills into a monumental form made of 250,000 spheres. The third part is a projection where we see a moving structure of black dots reacting to the visitors’ movements. This projection is mapped out onto a structure made of spheres. Everything is linked and without providing a complicated explanation, people will understand that they, too, have the ability to create the final, resulting form.

JO: Your new installation is naturally very tied to the Biennale’s theme ILLUMInations. While it expands upon ideas you presented at Mass MoCA, was it designed to tie so directly in to the Venice thematic this year?

FD: Yes, ‘Outside Itself’ follows up on Geometric Death Frequency 141 very naturally. Already at MASS MoCA, the form was created by objectifying light. The black spheres represent individual photons. ‘Outside Itself’ gradually emerges as infrared sensors track people’s movements in the installation. As a result, over the course of the entire Biennale from June till September, a sort of map will be generated that will be the basis for the resulting form composed of individual spheres. The sculpture is produced from data, and the data is different every day based on how quickly people go through and what colour clothing they have on. What is responsible for this is the interaction between the photons reflecting off people’s bodies. So light is brought in by people and they then create the form.

JO: With regards to the human interactivity, how important to your work is the idea that it is merely a human presence that controls the robots? For example, is it key to your work that there is no actual direct link, merely a visual connection free from control?

FD: Each photon has a unique position both in our world and in the virtual world, in the simulation we create. Movement is not predicted. Each sphere has its own unique position that is different and changes from moment to moment. It is a system of chaos. We don’t know what outside itself will look like at the end or even how it will begin. As it would be impossible to create the object and form manually, it is adhered together by robots that directly gather information about the people. Always at the end of the day, the software evaluates the map of people’s movements and starts to build the structure out of black spheres.

JO: It is suggested that viewers of all ages and nationalities will influence the sculpture’s form, and yet they are merely reflected via sight into a mechanical process – do you feel that this moves a step beyond the social networking and human use of technology today, as the viewer merely becomes a visual stimulus with no further input than presence?

FD: When a person gets dressed in the morning, their clothing says something about their personality and the colour their psychology. Each colour reflects light differently, and this is the basis for how we perceive it and how it has an effect on us. The resulting form mirrors the social networks of the people who went through the Arsenal in the course of Biennale di Venezia. The mechanical process of the robots is the extended arm of our space we don’t perceive. Without the robots, the installation would not and could not have come into being.

JO: Regardless of the technological and mathematical links, this speaks to me about the power of spectatorship and empathetic mirroring in society. Was this something that also inspired your project?

FD: Yes, the main statement is that Art is not art if human hands bring it into existence. I want to provocatively state that what’s important is the idea. Society’s mental field. Collective morphological fields inspire me.

JO: Is it important to you that this is all mathematically programmed and carried out by machines, rather than allowing any further creative interpretation by a human? Do you often work with rationalised responses to humanity’s presence?

FD: Mathematical processes are the language of nature, but it’s not important to emphasise them. They are the essence of the installation, and the algorithms are controlled by Robots. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his book on a typing machine and the publisher did not want to publish it, arguing that the book was written by a machine. Those are the beginnings of mechanics. Without human input, the mechanism doesn’t work. Robots will stand still. Let’s understand that they are just a new perspective so that we can understand the relationships that are not visible to us.

JO: The use of identical black spheres will no doubt somewhat erase the diversity of the audience that shapes it. Was this your intention?

FD: This year I am writing the Manifesto Nero. Black is fundamental, just like White. They are borderline colours that join us with the world beyond the limits of our senses.

JO: The Venice Biennale is, much like your installation, a reflection of its constituent parts and those that come to see it. Do you have any comments on the Biennale as a collective artistic enterprise, and on the aims of this bi-annual event?

FD: The Biennale is celebrating its 116^th anniversary; it is the oldest international exhibition in the world with an enormous history. The significance and joining of all nations underlines this – and this is another reason for ILLUMInations this year.